Balfour Declaration of 1917
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Categories: 1917 | Arab-Israeli conflict | Historical documents | History of Israel | Jews and Judaism in Jordan | Jews in Ottoman and British Palestine | Official documents of the United Kingdom | Zionism | Zionism in the United Kingdom
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Not to be confused with the Balfour Declaration of 1926.
The Balfour Declaration of 1917 (dated November 2 1917) was a classified formal statement of policy by the British government on the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of World War I. The letter stated the position, agreed to at a British Cabinet meeting on October 31 1917, that the British government supported Zionist plans for a National home for the Jewish people within Palestine with the condition that nothing should be done which might prejudice the rights of existing communities there. The statement was issued through the efforts of Chaim Weizmann and Nahum Sokolow, the principal Zionist leaders based in London but, as they had asked for the reconstitution of Palestine as “the” Jewish national home, the Declaration fell short of Zionist expectations.[1] The "Balfour Declaration" was later incorporated into the Sèvres peace treaty with Turkey and the Mandate for Palestine. The declaration was made in a letter from Arthur James Balfour (Foreign Secretary) to Lord Rothschild (Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild), a leader of the British Jewish community, for transmission to the Zionist Federation, a private Zionist organization. The document is kept at the British Library.
Text of the declarationThe declaration, a typed letter signed in ink by Balfour, reads as follows:
Text development and differing viewsThe record of discussions that led up to the final text of the Balfour Declaration clarifies some details of its wording. The phrase "national home" was intentionally used instead of "state", and the British devoted some effort over the following decades, including Winston Churchill's 1922 White Paper, to denying that a state was the intention. However, in private, many British officials agreed with the interpretation of the Zionists that a state would be the eventual outcome.[2] An early draft used the word that in referring to Palestine as a Jewish homeland, which was changed to in Palestine to avoid committing to it being the whole of Palestine. Similarly, an early draft did not include the commitment to not prejudicing the rights of the non-Jewish communities. These changes came about partly as the result of the urgings of Edwin Samuel Montagu, an influential anti-Zionist Jew and Secretary of State for India, who, among others, was concerned that the declaration without those changes could result in increased anti-Semitic persecution. At that time the British were busy making promises. Henry McMahon had exchanged letters with Hussein bin Ali, Sherif of Mecca, in 1915, in which he had promised the Arabs control of the Arab lands exclusive of the Mediterranean coast. The extent of the coastal exclusion is not clear. Hussein protested that the Arabs of Beirut would greatly oppose isolation from the Arab state or states, but did not bring up the matter of the Jerusalem area, which included a good part of Palestine. This suggests either that the area of Jerusalem and Palestine was not part of the inclusion promised to the Arabs, as shown in some maps and believed by pro-Arab historians, or that Palestine was included but Hussein did not protest. The latter version is supported by Dr. Chaim Weizmann in his autobiography Trial and Error. This interpretation was supported explicitly by the British government in the 1922 White Paper. Milner as the chief authorIn his posthumously published 1982 book The Anglo-American Establishment, Georgetown University history professor Carroll Quigley revealed that the Balfour Declaration was actually drafted by Lord Alfred Milner, who was the head of the Rhodes-Milner Round Table Groups that Cecil John Rhodes called for in his will to be "Churches for the extension of the British Empire." Milner was the trustee of Rhodes' will, while both Milner and Rhodes were self-described British race-patriots. The recipient of the Balfour Declaration, Lord Rothschild, was also a close friend of Rhodes and was at an earlier time the trustee of Rhodes' will. Quigley wrote:
NegotiationOne of the main proponents of a Jewish homeland in Palestine was Dr. Chaim Weizmann, the leading spokesman for organized Zionism in Britain. Weizmann was a chemist who had developed a process to synthesize acetone via fermentation. Acetone is required for the production of cordite, a powerful propellant explosive needed to fire ammunition without generating tell-tale smoke. Germany had cornered supplies of calcium acetate, a major source of acetone. Other pre-war processes in Britain were inadequate to meet the increased demand in World War I, and a shortage of cordite would have severely hampered Britain's war effort. Lloyd-George, then Minister for Munitions, was grateful to Weizmann and so supported his Zionist aspirations. During the first meeting between Weizmann and Balfour in 1906, Balfour asked what payment Weizmann would accept for use of his process and was told, "There is only one thing I want: A national home for my people." Balfour asked Weizmann why Palestine — and Palestine alone — should be the Zionist homeland. "Anything else would be idolatry", Weizmann protested, adding: "Mr. Balfour, supposing I was to offer you Paris instead of London, would you take it?" "But Dr. Weizmann", Balfour retorted, "we have London", to which Weizmann rejoined, "That is true, but we had Jerusalem when London was a marsh."[4] Weizmann eventually received both monetary compensation for his discovery and his place in history as first President of the state of Israel. Contradictory assurancesIn a 1919 memorandum he wrote as a Cabinet Minister, Balfour wrote of these contradictory assurances as follows:
Controversy behind DeclarationBritish public and government opinion became increasingly less favorable to the commitment that had been made to Zionist policy. In Feb 1922 Winston Churchill, a fervent Zionist himself, telegraphed Herbert Samuel asking for cuts in expenditure and noting:
Sir John Evelyn Shuckburgh of the new Middle East department of the Foreign Office discovered that the correspondence prior to the declaration was not available in the Colonial Office, 'although Foreign Office papers were understood to have been lengthy and to have covered a considerable period'." The 'most comprehensive explanation' of the origin of the Balfour Declaration the Foreign Office was able to provide was contained in a small 'unofficial' note of Jan 1923 affirming that:
Arab oppositionThe Arabs sensed danger in November 1918 at the parade marking the first anniversary of the Balfour Declaration. The Muslim-Christian Association protested the carrying of new 'white and blue banners with two inverted triangles in the middle'. They drew the attention of the authorities to the serious consequences of any political implications in raising the banners.[8] Later that month, on the first anniversary of the occupation of Jaffa by the British, the Muslim-Christian Association sent a lengthy memorandum and petition to the military governor protesting once more the Zionist intrusion.[9] References
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bg:Декларация Балфур ca:Declaració Balfour cs:Balfourova deklarace de:Balfour-Deklaration es:Declaración Balfour eo:Balfour-deklaro fr:Déclaration Balfour de 1917 ko:밸푸어 선언 id:Deklarasi Balfour 1917 it:Dichiarazione Balfour (1917) he:הצהרת בלפור lv:1917. gada Balfūra deklarācija hu:Balfour-nyilatkozat (1917) nl:Balfour-verklaring ja:バルフォア宣言 no:Balfourerklæringen i 1917 pl:Deklaracja Balfoura pt:Declaração de Balfour ru:Декларация Бальфура simple:Balfour Declaration of 1917 fi:Balfourin julistus sv:Balfourdeklarationen tr:Balfour Deklerasyonu, 1917 ur:اعلانِ بالفور yi:באלפורס דעקלאראציע |
