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Home , Balfour Declaration, National Home, One Nation (Israel)

Middle East Policy, Vol. XXIV, No. 4, Winter 2017

The Balfour Declaration a Century Later: Accidentally Relevant Ian S. Lustick

Dr. Lustick is the Beth W. Heyman Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. This article is based on a paper prepared for presentation at the annual meeting of the Association for Studies at Brandeis University, June 12-14, 2017.

he 2017 centennial of the Balfour “HMG should recognize its role during the Declaration has been observed Mandate and now must lead attempts to with great fanfare. The theme reach a solution that ensures justice for the of the 2017 annual meeting of Palestinian people,” it added. Tthe Association for Israel Studies was “A As with every anniversary associated Century after Balfour: Vision and Real- with the Arab-Israeli conflict, one side’s ity.” In February 2017, Israeli Prime celebration is the other side’s occasion for Minister Benjamin Netanyahu exulted in mourning and protest. That is perfectly un- the British government’s invitation to him derstandable, and the Balfour Declaration to attend its celebration of the centenary: is, rightly, considered a major step toward “While the want to sue Britain an ultimate aim of — establish- for the Balfour Declaration, the British ment of a Jewish-dominated state in the prime minister is inviting the Israeli prime and, accordingly, toward the minister to an event to mark the hundredth catastrophe of destruction and displace- anniversary of the declaration. That speaks ment visited upon the Arab inhabitants of volumes.” Israel reciprocated by inviting . Nevertheless, both those who the royal family to visit the to venerate the declaration and those who honor the anniversary of the declaration. hold it in contempt are mistaken insofar as The Palestinians, for their part, have they imagine it to represent a deep logic marked the centenary by demanding an of international law, Western culture or apology from Great Britain. “We call on historical rights, on the one hand, or, on Her Majesty’s Government to openly the other, the diabolical logic of European apologize to the Palestinian people for is- imperialism dedicated to exploiting Middle suing the Balfour Declaration. The colo- Easterners and Middle Eastern resources. nial policy of Britain between 1917-1948 Both sides would be well to remember led to mass displacement of the Palestin- Kurt Vonnegut’s explanation, in his novel ian nation,” read the petition, according The Sirens of Titan, for the rise and fall of to WAFA, the Palestinian news agency. hundreds of human civilizations. In that © 2017, The Author Middle East Policy © 2017, Middle East Policy Council 166 Lustick: The Balfour Declaration a Century Later

tale, there is no profound meaning to the in a position of influence might imagine history of mankind, no transcendental pur- could aid in the struggle was highly likely pose to the rise and fall of cultures, states to be done. Balfour’s own words about or civilizations. All of that history was the attitude of the Great Powers toward rather the result of a travel delay. Hundreds Palestine register the casual cynicism to- of thousands of years ago, a messenger of ward those whose lands would be forever the advanced race of Tralfamadorians was marked by the decisions about their future traveling from one galaxy with a simple incidental to the European conflagration or greeting for representatives of another race the organization of its aftermath. in another galaxy. The messenger suffered a transportation breakdown in our galaxy, Whatever deference should be paid to indeed our solar system. The Great Wall of the view of those living there, the Pow- China, the Roman Empire, and hundreds ers in their selection of a mandatory more human accomplishments, and many do not propose, as I understand the matter, to consult them. In short, so far more failures, were just messages sent by as Palestine is concerned, the Powers the Tralfamadorians to their stranded mes- have made no statement of fact which senger that the spare part he needed was is not admittedly wrong, and no dec- on its way. From a Middle Eastern point laration of policy which, at least in the of view, the origins and consequences of letter, they have not always intended to the Balfour Declaration are, in their way, violate...” (August 11, 1919) exactly as orthogonal, banal and arbitrary as were the consequences of the Tralfama- captured this same at- dorian mishap for earthlings. In the case titude in his characterization of the Balfour of the Balfour Declaration, the aliens are Declaration as “one of the most improb- the European imperialists. Their interests, able political documents of all time. In this passions and concerns, trivial or important document solemnly promised to to them, are not at all related to the con- a second nation the country of a third.”1 cerns, passions, aspirations, beliefs, norms It was not simply the fact of the Bal- and realities of the Middle East — the four Declaration or its timing — before disposition of which occurs as an arbitrary Britain had even taken control of Palestine function of the accidents of European, not — that were accidental, which is to say, Middle Eastern, affairs. the contingent by-product of contending Most crucially, in the second decade of forces. The declaration’s content, indeed the twentieth century, a great and terrify- its precise wording, was also, in this sense, ing war pressed leaders of European states thoroughly accidental. As Leonard Stein, to fear for their lives and the survival of and others have shown their states. It was upon one another that in detail, the wording of every sentence, their attention, their real attention, was and even every phrase, of the declara- focused. The categorical imperative was tion reflected bargaining processes among to prevail in the war, and nothing less. No Zionists, between Zionists and the British matter how flimsily justified or farfetched, government, and within the British govern- no matter how duplicitous, no matter how ment itself (that is, the War Cabinet). contradictory to other commitments by In 1917, the horrors of trench warfare, other officials, anything that any person the disaster at Gallipoli, uncertainty about

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the strength of America’s commitment and rate negotiations surrounding the phrasing revolution in inclined British lead- of the declaration, its exact wording was ers to grasp at whatever straws of support also, in this sense, “accidental,” a highly might be available. In his detailed treat- contingent by-product of intensive nego- ment, Schneer comments that, more than tiations among interested parties. What anything else, “the Balfour Declaration is fascinating is to notice how artful and sprang from fundamental miscalculations largely uninformed turns of phrase by about the power of and about the ex-Etonians had massive ripple effects in power and unity of .”2 Indeed, bizarre the Middle East, effects similar to those beliefs were held by some that internation- apparent in the Middle East map as a result al Jewish power could be the difference of Churchill’s apocryphal hiccup. between defeat and victory over the central To understand the odd wording of the powers. They combined with the millenari- Balfour Declaration, one must add to this anism of Lloyd George and , cacophony of interests, fantasies, false and the excellent connections and diplo- beliefs, grinding imperatives and hair- macy of and Nahum raising fears the traditional anti-Semitism Sokolov, to make Zionist demands appear of British leaders such as Herbert Asquith as a priority for desperate British leaders. and Robert Cecil, and the raw disputes Yet the geopolitical imperatives were among over Zionism as a pos- not completely clear. With Russia weak- sible threat to an assimilationist program. ened and out of the war, a deal with the This latter split was rendered obvious to seemed possible, since the highest levels of the British govern- the Russian demands for ment by the confrontation between two could be ignored. But that would mean high ranking British Jews, the secretary of betraying the Zionists by leaving Pales- state for India, Sir , who tine under Turkish control. No matter. All opposed Zionism, and Sir Herbert Samuel, would be promised to all — the Ottomans, who ardently supported the movement. the French, the Jews and the Arabs — Samuel had refused Prime Minister Lloyd anything to keep in play the possibility of George’s request to remain as home secre- marginal assistance to the war effort and to tary, but did accept his appointment after rule out the phantom threat of Germany’s the war as Britain’s first high commis- rallying world Jewry to its side by forcing sioner of Palestine. the Ottoman Empire to accept mass im- After months of wrangling and revi- migration of Jews into Palestine. sions, and amid ferocious opposition by anti-Zionist British Jews, the declara- THE DECLARATION AS tion was approved by the Cabinet. Dated CONCEPTUAL EQUIPMENT , 1917, it was issued as a letter It is accordingly correct to say that the from the to Lord Wal- Balfour Declaration was entirely “ac- ter Rothschild. But drafts of what would cidental” — a reflection of contingencies emerge as this letter had been solicited and concerns afflicting Europeans that had from the Zionists by the British govern- absolutely nothing to do with the realities ment five months earlier. Multiple versions and inhabitants of the region as a whole or were circulated and massaged, based on Palestine in particular. Despite the elabo- Zionist efforts to get as firm and as great

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a commitment from Britain as possible for the Jewish people in Palestine “secured toward the ultimate ambitions of the move- by international law.” But, privately, many ment (a Jewish state in all of Palestine) Zionists and Weizmann, in particular, felt without sabotaging the entire effort by differently. They were disappointed in asking for too much. The draft submitted every one of changes made to their draft to the government would have had Britain — so much so that, when the declaration accepting the “principle” that “Palestine was translated into Hebrew, it was impos- should be reconstituted as the National sible to resist the temptation to restore at Home of the Jewish people” and commit- least some of the lost wording.3 In any ting itself, case, Zionists via its “best took heart endeavors,” The 1917 Balfour Declaration can now be from, and to “secure seen to describe a new approach: a peace used as guid- the achieve- based, not on two states in one country, ance, Herbert ment of this Samuel’s object.” To but on two national homes in one state. 1915 pro- do so, the posal to make draft committed the British government Palestine a protectorate within the British to “discuss necessary methods and means Empire so that, eventually, it might evolve with the Zionist Organization” (thereby into a Jewish state. recognized as the official representative of In the event, those Zionists who Jewish interests in Palestine). believed even this sort of halfway British Important to note is that the final decla- support could be exploitable for the pur- ration 1) omitted endorsing the Zionist pose of building a “state-on-the-way” were ideological position that a Jewish entity correct. The history by which that objec- in Palestine would be a “reconstitution” tive was obtained is familiar and need not of a historical precedent; 2) referred to be repeated here. What is of interest is the Palestine, not as “the of sudden and surprising relevance of what the Jews” (capitalized and with the defi- would normally be imagined as the archaic nite article), but to “a national home for and stilted text of the declaration. the Jewish people” that would be located Leaping from one century to another, within it; and 3) added four lines (50 let us now consider how the arbitrary and percent of the text) on two topics wholly convoluted wording of the 1917 Balfour omitted from the Zionist proposal: an ad- Declaration can now, in 2017, be seen to monition that “nothing shall be done which describe a new approach to peace between may prejudice the civil and religious rights Arabs and Jews in Palestine/the Land of of existing non-Jewish communities, or the Israel — a peace based, not on two states rights and political status of Jews in any in one country, but on two national homes other country.” in one state. In other words, out of accident Arabs angrily portrayed the declaration and confusion of forethought has come as the promise of a state for the Jews. Pub- real and valuable conceptual equipment for licly, Zionists celebrated the declaration as addressing the central dilemmas confront- the long-awaited charter, what the Basel ing all the inhabitants of the country. The Program had described as a “homeland” Jewish state arose within the context of

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British and European authorization of the lives on. Instructively, Naftali Bennett’s evolution of a national home for Jews party, Bayit Yehudi (Jewish Home), is within a single politico-administrative unit. committed to the most expansive concep- A century later, the terms of that autho- tion of Zionism’s ambitions entertained rization can be understood as support- by any leading Israeli . In ing further processes of political change the vocabulary of Israel’s extreme right, that could result in two national homes, distrust of the State of Israel and a desire one Jewish and one Arab, within a single to subordinate raison d’état to raison de politico-administrative unit, each bound to Tsionut — allegiance to the building up of operate in ways that do not “prejudice the the Jewish National Home in the Land of civil and religious rights” of others in the Israel — is imagined as a more fundamen- country. tal commitment than is a simple patriotic The most unusual word in the decla- allegiance to the civil “state” of Israel ration was “home.” As Arthur Koestler (which may or may not be considered a observed, the term had no clear or legal useful instrument for that purpose). This is meaning. Even when incorporated after the message as well of the nearly 100-me- in the ’ ter collage that covers the towering wall , it remained “a of the entry and exit hall at Ben-Gurion complete novelty, a term with a curiously Airport. Celebrating the accomplishments sentimental ring, undefined by internation- of the Zionist movement, it concludes with al law and yet the object of an international a slogan taken from Herzl. Whatever has treaty of far-reaching importance.”4 The been accomplished with or without the Basle Declaration, issued (in German) 20 state, the mission of the movement contin- years before Balfour’s letter to Lord Roth- ues, for “Zionism is an infinite ideal.” schild, described the Zionist Organization We must, however, remember that the as committed to the cause of establishing Balfour Declaration was a British docu- a heimstatt “for the Jewish people in Pal- ment. In that context, the political geneal- estine secured under public law.” Often ogy of the word “home” (as opposed to translated as “home,” heimstatt is also “homeland” or “state”) is instructive. The rendered as “homestead” or “homeland.” demand by (mostly) Irish Catholics for Herzl’s contemporaneous diary entry in “Home Rule” (first called “Home Govern- which he predicted that he had, in Basle, ment”) developed in the late nineteenth “founded the Jewish state,” was a more ac- and early twentieth centuries into the sin- curate depiction of what the delegates who gle most dominant political issue in British approved the declaration believed they politics. When Parliament passed the Third were doing. However, for public consump- Home Rule Bill in in 1913, the prospect of tion and for diplomatic purposes, explicit establishing an Irish parliament in Dublin references to statehood would be deferred pushed the country to the brink of civil and ambitions to that effect even, on occa- war — avoided only by Prime Minister sion, denied.5 Asquith’s decision to back down and by In that context, the English term the outbreak of World War I, which then “home” offered a perfectly ambiguous, deflected attention from the issue. One of hearteningly warm, and conceptually the main contributors to the detailed prepa- expansive alternative. That evocative term ration of the Third Home Rule Bill was

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“Home” Secretary Herbert Samuel. So it is French Canadians. In the Canadian case, not at all a stretch to imagine that “home” there is a provincial territorial boundary in the Balfour Declaration was a term eas- that has meaning, but a Quebecois or an ily understood by British politicians and Anglo citizen of Canada can choose to live statesmen as an arrangement, short of a anywhere in the state. state, that would yet honor the desire for A possible precedent for this kind of national political autonomy and cultural arrangement, and one that may have had self-expression.6 much more to do with the approach of In the event, Home Rule was not British imperialists to the idea of a “home” implemented. The law became a dead let- for Jews in a British Palestine than has ter after World War I. The (small-scale by been heretofore noted, was the proposal, comparison) during the Anglo-Irish decades of the War from A possible precedent was the proposal, Home Rule 1918-21 during the Home Rule controversy in controversy produced Britain, to finesse the Irish demand for a in Britain, to partition. national home by establishing “home rule finesse the Instead of Irish demand Home Rule, all round.” for a national the south of home by Ireland (all but nine heavily Protestant establishing “home rule all round.” Un- counties in Ulster) became “the Irish Free der this plan there were to be separate State” and then, via self-proclamation, national legislatures in Ireland, England, “The Republic of Ireland.” What is of Wales and Scotland, each of which would particular interest is the extent to which have autonomy but be under the overall the conception of a national home in a state sovereignty of the ’s country, be it Palestine or the United Parliament at Westminster. This idea — Kingdom, offers a model for the future of also known in various guises as devolution life in the country Jews call the Land of or federalism — arose as early as 1830, Israel and Arabs call Palestine. For if there received support from can be “a” national home for Jews in that in the 1870s, and then was revived amid country, there is no reason there could not the 1913-14 Home Rule crisis by a variety also be “a” national home for Arabs there of leading British imperialists, includ- as well. The focus of this model is on the ing Robert Cecil, and Alfred non-exclusivist satisfaction of desires for Milner. Indeed, it was Milner who was self-expression and self-determination personally responsible for changing the within a separate overarching political Zionist proposal in crucial ways to produce framework — or state, a state that itself is the wording of the Balfour Declaration as not the locus of political self-determination we know it. According to Schneer, Milner by either party. For an example, one can personally “removed the word ‘reconsti- point to Canada, with a maple leaf on its tute’ from the statement. Instead of term- flag rather than the Union Jack, as a state ing Palestine ‘the National Home of the framework within which two national Jewish people,’ he called it in his new draft homes coexist, one for Anglos and one for ‘a National Home for the Jewish people.’”

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Subsequently, again at Milner’s request, for two national communities, while “Leopold Amery, an undersecretary to the developing a “layer” of joint admin- War Cabinet…excis[ed] any reference to istration on key matters that may in- the Zionist Organization and incorporated clude: environment, external security, language, employed by Zionists in letters economy, transportation, immigration, and even a joint body to protect hu- to …denying they would dam- 7 man rights. The confederation model age Arab interests in Palestine.” Balfour creates a single economic market and himself endorsed the “vision” of home freedom of movement for purposes rule all round, imagining it not only as of employment, tourism, trade and applicable to the United Kingdom, but as even limited residence. The model, a mechanism that could accommodate na- in accordance with international law tionalist desires for autonomy throughout — can rely on the foundation of two the entire .8 states. On this basis, progress can be made to create a functioning system TWO NATIONAL HOMES that will not only be economically beneficial for the two nations, it will IN ONE STATE also advance historical justice for In our own time, it is striking to notice Palestinians and Jews.10 the increasing salience of this vision of multiple administrative, political and legis- A detailed description of the architec- lative semiautonomous authorities operat- ture for such a confederation was pub- ing within a single non-nationalist state lished by IPCRI under the title Two States framework. Most, but not all, of those seek- in One Space: A New Proposed Frame- ing to promote this kind of approach are work for Resolving the Israeli-Palestinian former two-state-solution advocates who Conflict. In the introduction to this 250- no longer believe partition of the country page document, the authors (including into two states is possible but can imagine both Israelis and Palestinians, with Yifta- no route to the transformation of the entire chel listed as a member of the project’s country into a single democratic state. The steering committee), although without result is a host of new formulations for citing Balfour, evoke its language: “squaring the circle” by designing a politi- cal framework for Israel-Palestine that is Geography, history and demography neither one nor two states. Oren Yiftachel dictate that Palestinians and Jews and his collaborators have done a great deal need to live in this land together and of work to develop the confederation idea, separately. Together, because both imagining a just peace as achievable via people share the same homeland, “bottom-up” mechanisms “through gradual separately because each of them needs integration by means of two sovereign enti- their own independent national home. 9 In a nutshell: two states, one space, ties, within a confederation format.” The one homeland. An Israeli-Palestinian arrangements described are complex and union.11 in many respects unsatisfyingly delineated, but the overall rationale is fairly clear: In their edited volume One Land, Two States: Israel and Palestine as Parallel maintaining the logic and significant States, Mark LeVine and Mathias Moss- symbolism of two sovereign spaces berg make a similar argument. One of their

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contributors, Peter Wallensteen, not only State: A New Approach to Ethnic Conflicts evokes the “national home” concept, but and the Decline of Sovereignty, explicitly cites the Balfour Declaration while doing developed and applied the concept of mul- so. He depicts the existence of two states tiple “national homes” located within a sin- in the same land — “parallel” statehood gle state as reflecting both the implications — as “constituting a national home for of a post-Westphalian world and as offering each of the Jewish and Palestinian popula- new opportunities for resolving protracted tions.”12 “Home” is also the term used by ethnic conflicts over state control. Teodora Todorova to summarize sugges- Gottlieb’s basic idea was to shift focus tions by a variety of authors who imagine from “states” to “nations” as the constitu- how the tive units of attachment world poli- of two “col- The basic idea was to shift focus from tics, casting lectivities” “states” to “nations,” casting the the state as an to the whole state as an administrative framework administrative land could framework be satisfied. within which multiple nations can find within which She describes non-exclusivist opportunities for self- multiple na- the thrust of governance, cultural expression and tions can find this work as national-pride identification. non-exclu- centering on sivist oppor- “the no- tunities for tion of ‘home’ as opposed to ‘homeland’ self-governance, cultural expression and in thinking through post/decolonial national-pride identification. Imagining (in cohabitation.”13 contrast to Witkin) at least some territorial Yet another example of this approach basis for intrastate national homes, Gott- has been offered by Nathan Witkin, who lieb suggested the appropriateness of sepa- describes an “interspersed nation-state” rating (as Israel does) “nationality” from model as including two sovereign states “citizenship.” Gottlieb described “Na- operating across the same territory but ad- tional Home Regimes”14 as involving “the ministering the lives, and responding to the issuance of two sets of passports to the national sentiments, of different but com- inhabitants of a country: a set of national mingled nations. According to Witkin, a passports to the inhabitants of the national- variety of complex issues, including crimi- home areas, and a set of citizenship pass- nal extradition and property rights, can be ports to the citizens of the states.”15 While addressed via bilateral treaties analogous avoiding any direct reference to the Bal- to those guiding the operation of sovereign four Declaration, Gottlieb argued that the states that accommodate the requirements concept of a “national home” was not new. and respect the legal status of non- “The common national home is a con- nationals within their borders based on cept that has its roots in history, culture, principles of reciprocity. The theoretical and myth. The limits of a national home basis of Witkin’s argument builds on the (patrie in French or heimat in German) are work of the international lawyer Gidon derived from ancient traditions rather than Gottlieb, whose 1993 book, Nation against from juridical title.”16

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ACCIDENTAL BUT EXPLOITABLE Kallen, hailed Britain’s wisdom precisely TRUTH because it did not call for a Jewish ethnon- An essential meaning of imperialism ational state in Palestine. Kallen saw the is that what is fate for the imperialized catastrophe of the Great War as springing (however much it may seem to some like from the ethnonationalism of Germany destiny) is accidental and fundamentally and the Slavic countries. The movements meaningless for the imperial power. Un- represented a “venomous infection” of na- derstanding the Balfour Declaration means tional statism. In Europe, “England alone,” keeping in mind what obsessed British he wrote, immediately following the issu- elites during World War I and with what ance of the Balfour Declaration, “escaped categories they naturally thought about the evils of infection.” But, along with the political world. That means tracing the England, it was also America that taught role played by desperation in the struggle the world the truth: against Germany, the failure of efforts to achieve a separate peace with Turkey, that there is no more necessary highly parochial and personal conflicts be- connection between nationality and tween Indian Office bureaucrats and those citizenship than between religion and colonial officials based in Cairo, and weird citizenship. A nationality is a very intimate form of historic and cultural but prevalent anti-Semitic or philo-Semitic creative association, related to the beliefs about Jewish power and influ- group as personality is to the indi- ence in Russia, Germany and the United vidual. To function effectively, it must States. It also means that understanding the be even freer and more self-governed origins and contemporaneous meaning of than a church. A state is a secondary the Balfour Declaration requires ignoring form of association designed by those what it has meant for the past and present who participate in it….A nationality is inhabitants of Palestine. creative, a state regulative.17 Nevertheless, we can use the concep- tual equipment provided by the declara- It was, according to Kallen, precisely tion to pursue new and positive futures for a home for the Jewish nation that - Palestine/the Land of Israel. A century ago, ism wanted, not a state. Echoing, if not some of its framers, and certainly many explicitly endorsing, Ahad Haam, Kallen Zionists, imagined that the wording and declared that what political and legal contexts provided by the declaration could be used eventually to the Jewish nationality has ever asked achieve a Jewish state that would rule the for…has been not the sovereignty that constitutes a state, but freedom to entire country. Other Zionists, however, achieve those excellences appropriate were enthusiastic about the declaration to its nature, and through this achieve- precisely because it separated “nationality” ment to make its contribution to the from “citizenship” in a manner deemed free-trade of the spirit among nation- both more honorable and more civilized alities we call civilization.18 than ethnonationalist formulas of national state power. The recovery of “national home” or One of the most influential Jewish “national homes” in Palestine/the Land of and Zionist thinkers in America, Horace Israel as a potentially more attractive pic-

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ture of the future than one or two national negotiations. Much more likely is that the states is one payoff of the analysis I have country’s future will emerge as the by- presented. But careful consideration of the product of competition among political Balfour Declaration and its effects does forces, including Zionists, non-Zionists more than that. It also highlights a possible and anti-Zionists, as well as Jews, Arabs route to that future. Instead of imagining and non-Jewish non-Arabs. The forms this that negotiations will lead to a prettier competition will take will be both civilized picture than the conflict-fear-and-resent- and savage, and they will produce alliances ment-saturated political landscape of 2017 that past patterns of affinity and enmity — whether to one state for one people, would not encourage one to think likely. one state for two peoples, two states for What can be said with certainty is that no two peoples, or two homes for two peoples order will be stable that does not reflect the in one state — the in resources and sentiments attached to all the decades after the Balfour Declaration the people who live in the land and those, forces us to consider that the more likely worldwide, for whom the future of the route to whatever future the country will country has profound or trivial, but none- inhabit, whether pretty or not, will not be theless real, meaning.

1 Arthur Koestler, Promise and Fulfilment: Palestine 1917-1949 (Macmillan Company, 1949), 4. 2 Jonathan Schneer, The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict(Random House, 2010), 345. 3 An example appears currently in the “Zionism is an infinite ideal” collage (see below) at Ben-Gurion Air- port. Featured in the gigantic display is a reproduction of a contemporary Zionist celebration of the issuance of the Balfour Declaration. In large, emphasized letters, the phrase “a national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine is (mis)translated as endorsing “Beit leumi b’Eretz Yisrael l’am Yisrael” (A National Home in the Land of Israel for the People of Israel). Of course, the declaration made reference to neither the “People of Israel” nor the “Land of Israel,” but by translating the English phrasing in this way the meaning of the docu- ment could be massaged toward the Zionist principle that what was to be done would be a “reconstitution” of an ancient reality. 4 Koestler, Promise and Fulfilment, 5. 5 In his testimony before the , David Ben-Gurion denied that the Zionist movement desired a state or anything beyond a “home” in a Palestine governed as a part of the British empire. See Ian S. Lustick and Matthew Berkman, “Zionist Theories of Peace in the Pre-State Era: Legacies of Dissimulation and Israel’s Arab Minority,” in Israel and Its Palestinian Citizens: Ethnic Privileges in the Jewish State, ed. Nadim N. Rouhana and Sahar S. Huneidi (Cambridge University Press, 2017), 62. 6 That is almost certainly how understood what was promised to the Jews by the Balfour Declaration. The best-known of American Zionism in the early twentieth century, Brandeis in 1915 described Zionism as seeking “to establish in Palestine, for such Jews as choose to go and remain there, and for their descendants, a legally secured home, where they may live together and lead a Jewish life, where they may expect ultimately to constitute a majority of the population, and may look forward to what we should call home rule.” 7 Schneer, Balfour Declaration, 336. 8 J.E. Kendle, “The Round Table Movement and ‘Home Rule All Round,’” The Historical Journal 11, no. 2 (1968): 341. 9 Oren Yiftachel, “Between One and Two: Debating Confederation and One-State Solution for Israel/Pales-

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tine,” lecture delivered at Tel Aviv University, May 2012, available at https://www.slideshare.net/moshiklich- tenstien/middle-eastreflectionsyiftachel-2013-between-one-and-two. 10 Ibid. 11 Haim Yacobi, Noa Levy, Huda Abu Arqub, Alma Katz, Ofer Shinar, Muhammed Iriqat, Tamar Luster, Yael Berda, Riman Bakarat and Benedeta Berti, Two States in One Space: A New Proposed Framework for Resolving the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (IPCRI: Creative Regional Solutions Project, November 2014),10, available at http://www.ipcri.org/index.php/publications/research-and-information/191-two-states-in-one- space-research-paper. 12 Peter Wallensteen, “Parallel Sovereignty Dividing and Sharing Core State Functions,” in One Land, Two States: Israel and Palestine as Parallel States, ed. Mark LeVine and Mathias Mossberg (University of Cali- fornia Press, 2014), 44. 13 Teodora Todorova, “Reframing Bi-nationalism in Palestine-Israel as a Process of Settler Decolonisation,” Antipode 47, no. 5 (2015): 1367-1387. 14 Gidon Gottlieb, Nation against State: A New Approach to Ethnic Conflicts and the Decline of Sovereignty (Council on Foreign Relations, 1993), 42. 15 Ibid., 42, 44. 16 Ibid., 44. On the larger discourse of self-administration as a route to comity and a basis for resolving protracted ethnic and national disputes, see Self-Determination and Self-Administration: A Sourcebook, ed. Wolfgang Danspeckgruber with Arthur Watts (Lynne Rienner, 1997). 17 H. M. Kallen, “The Balfour Declaration: Great Britain Grants a Homeland to the Homeless Jews,” The Nation, November 29, 1917, available at https://www.thenation.com/article/november-2-1917-the-balfour- declaration-promises-british-support-for-a-national-home-for-the-jewish-people. For a discussion of the subsequent tensions in Kallen’s thinking between the principles espoused here and his inclination to believe the Arabs of Palestine could be assimilated into a Jewish national culture, see Pianko, “‘The True Lib- eralism of Zionism’: Horace Kallen, Jewish Nationalism, and the Limits of American Pluralism,” American 94, no. 4 (December 2008): 299-329. 18 Ibid.

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