Opposed by the only Jew in the Cabinet: the Balfour Declaration

A hurried but highly educational comment by Misterioso (who lived in ME for 5 years) on an article comparing Trump and Balfour.

The Balfour Declaration was published on November 2, 1917. In response, on 24 May 1917, the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Anglo-Jewish Association published a joint manifesto of protest in the London Times which described political Zionism as a threat to Judaism and prophetically predicted that “[it]…would involve them ‘in the bitterest feuds with their neighbours of other races and religions’ and would ‘find deplorable echoes throughout the Orient.’ Similar protests were heard…in France and Italy, but their governments too were now virtually committed to the Zionist cause.” (David Waines, The Unholy Land, op cit., p. 37).
Opposition to the Declaration also came from the only Jewish member of the British Cabinet, Secretary of State for India, Sir Edwin Montagu. He feared that a declaration supporting a Jewish “national home” in Palestine would define Jews as a separate nation and threaten their position in other countries where they were established citizens by raising the question of “divided loyalties.”
While Sir Montagu did not succeed in stopping the Balfour Declaration, he was largely responsible for the section safeguarding “the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews” outside of Palestine.
The Balfour Declaration was also opposed by Gertrude Bell, one of the era’s greatest Arabists, a colleague of T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) and a member of British intelligence in Cairo. Realizing what the Balfour Declaration could (and did) lead to, she wrote the British cabinet of PM Lloyd George advising it that “an independent Jewish Palestine” was impractical because “[Palestine]…is not Jewish;” the native population would not “accept Jewish authority…. Jerusalem is equally sacred to three faiths and should not be put under the exclusive control of any one….” (Sanders, The High Walls of Jerusalem, p. 585)
In discussing the legal basis for the creation of Israel, the highly respected American lawyer and diplomat Sol Linowitz wrote: “…the [Balfour] Declaration was legally impotent. For Great Britain had no sovereign rights over Palestine; it had no proprietary interest; it had no authority to dispose of the land. The Declaration was merely a statement of British intentions and no more.” (Sol M. Linowitz, “Analysis of a Tinderbox: The Legal Basis for the State of Israel.” American Bar Association Journal XLlll l957, pp. 522-3)
Even Chaim Weizmann knew the Declaration had no legal status: “The Balfour Declaration of 1917 was built on air.” (Mallison, “The Balfour Declaration,” in The transformation of Palestine: essays on the Origin and Development of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, ed. by Abu-Lughold; Northwestern University Press, 1971 p. 85)
The Balfour Declaration was the first major achievement of Zionism and the second time in eighteen months the British betrayed the Arabs. Setting aside its abandoned promise in the Hussein-McMahon correspondence to support the independence of Palestine and the fact that the Palestinians had not been consulted, could Britain legally commit itself to support a “home” for Jews in a province of the Ottoman Empire? In fact, it had no such right. “The British government’s promise to use its ‘best endeavours’ to facilitate the Zionist project in Palestine amounted to a promise to give to the Zionists what England did not have, in violation of the established legal maxim Nemo dat quod non habet (nobody can give what he does not possess).” (Adel Safty, From Camp David to the Gulf p. 12)
In discussing the legal basis for the creation of Israel, the highly respected American lawyer and diplomat Sol Linowitz wrote: “…the [Balfour] Declaration was legally impotent. For Great Britain had no sovereign rights over Palestine; it had no proprietary interest; it had no authority to dispose of the land. The Declaration was merely a statement of British intentions and no more.” (Sol M. Linowitz, “Analysis of a Tinderbox: The Legal Basis for the State of Israel.” American Bar Association Journal XLlll l957, pp.522-3)
Importantly, although the Allies managed to have the Balfour Declaration mentioned after World War 1 in the aborted Treaty of Sevres, there is no mention of it in the final treaty that was signed with the Turks at Lausanne on July 24, 1923. This is important in international law because Turkey did not agree to the idea of a “Jewish national home” in Palestine when it surrendered sovereignty to Britain.
Britain decided to send a delegation led by Weizmann to meet with the Arabs to allay their concerns regarding the Balfour Declaration and Zionist designs on Palestine. In June 1918, he visited Sherif Hussein’s son, Prince Faisal near Aqaba and deceitfully assured him that Arab suspicions were caused by either a “fundamental misconception of Zionist aims or the malicious activities of our common enemies.” (Lilienthal, The Zionist Connection, p. 19.)
Weizmann lied further when he assured the prince and Palestinian notables whom he met later, that Zionists were not striving to establish a Jewish government in Palestine (ibid) or “to get hold of the supreme power and administration there.” (Ingrams, Palestine Papers, quoted by Smith, PATAIC, p. 59)
This was the Zionist leader’s first trip to Palestine and he was not prepared for what he encountered. Having previously observed that according to the British, “there are a few hundred thousand negroes [in Palestine], but that is a matter of no significance, …” (Norman Finkelstein, “History’s Verdict”, J of PS #96, Vol. XXIV, summer 1995, p. 33) Weizmann was so overwhelmed by the size and stability of the native population that he feared Arab protests might convince Britain to have second thoughts about the Balfour Declaration.
Weizman’s racism overflowed while opining to Arthur Ruppin on the Palestinian “Negro Problem”: “…a comment by [Chaim] Weizmann to Arthur Ruppin, head of the colonisation department of the Jewish Agency, is particularly revealing. When asked by Ruppin about the Palestinian Arabs and how he (Weizmann) obtained the Balfour Declaration in 1917, Weizmann replied: ‘The British told us that there are some hundred thousand negroes [kushim or schwartzes in Hebrew] and for those there is no value’ ([Yosef] Heller[, Bama’vak Lemedinah, Hamediniyut Hatzionit Bashanim 1936–1948 (The Struggle for the State: The Zionist Policy 1936–1948) (Jerusalem:] 1984:[), p.] 140).” (from page 5 of 60 years after the Nakba by Dr Nur Masalha”
On 16 June 1918, to further assuage the Arabs, Britain issued the British Declaration to the Seven. It confirmed that as previously announced in Baghdad and Jerusalem, “…the future government…should be based upon the principle of the consent of the governed. This policy will always be that of His Majesty’s Government.” (Sami Hadawi, op cit. p. 14.)
Most significant to the Arabs were what proved to be impotent public pledges made by President Wilson. On 18 January 1918, he set forth his famous fourteen points of which number twelve stated that once the war was over, “…[those] nationalities that are [presently] under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development…” (Hadawi, op cit. p.10.)
Needless to say, ultimately the Arabs were betrayed by Britain and with the assistance primarily of the U.S., Jewish Zionists of foreign origin eventually gained control of Palestine and violently dispossessed and expelled about 1,250,000 indigenous Arab inhabitants between late 1947 and 1967.