The Balfour Declaration: Origins and Impact

BICOM Briefing The Balfour Declaration: Origins and Impact

BICOM Research Team November 2016

Key points: establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine, became binding in international • Zionism, the name given to the national law following the 1920 San Remo Conference, liberation movement of the Jewish people, and the 1922 British Mandate from the emerged in Europe at the end of 19th century League of Nations. As the Mandate drew to a and called for the establishment of a Jewish close, the international legitimacy of Jewish homeland in the Land of Israel / Palestine. statehood was further strengthened by UN By 1917, when the Balfour Declaration (the General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution 181 – Declaration) was published, Zionism had which recommended partitioning Mandatory cross-party support in Britain as well as Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab government backing in France, America, and states – and reinforced by the State of Israel’s other countries, while the pending defeat of acceptance into the family of nations following the Ottoman Empire – which had controlled its 1948 War of Independence. that geographic area for the previous four hundred years – provided an opportunity • While the Declaration constituted an for British politicians to translate their important component in facilitating Jewish ideological support for Zionism into practice. immigration and creating the legal basis for In that period, the Zionist movement’s call for the establishment of the State of Israel, it statehood was but one of many nationalist did not make such a homeland inevitable. movements – such as the Arab, Turkish, In fact, primarily motivated by an attempt to Armenian, and Kurdish – which saw the satisfy Arab opposition to Zionism, British collapse of empires as an opportunity to White Papers in the 1920s and 1930s severely achieve self-determination. limited Jewish immigration and threatened the viability of Jewish statehood. Any analysis • The Declaration neither signalled the start of Britain’s role in the establishment of Israel of a Jewish return to the Land of Israel / should thus include both the Declaration – Palestine nor mass immigration to it. Jews which encouraged Jewish immigration – and had enjoyed a continuous presence in the the numerous White Papers which restricted it. area for centuries before the destruction of the Second Jewish Temple in 70 CE, and by the • Britain’s role in the Middle East in the time of the Declaration approximately 80,000- decades following the First World War was 90,000 Jews already lived in Palestine without highly significant. But the history of the the assistance of any external power. Declaration, the years of the British Mandate and the establishment of the State of Israel are • Despite opposition among many locals to complex and any assessment of Britain’s role Jewish immigration, some Middle Eastern needs to take that into consideration. leaders welcomed Zionism. As Emir Faisal ibn Husain, leader of the Arab delegation at the Paris Peace Conference wrote, the Arabs Introduction “look with the deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement” seeing it as helping their • The Balfour Declaration was the British own people’s quest for self-determination. government’s pledge to help the Jewish community build a national home in Palestine • The Declaration itself was not a legal and took the form of a letter penned on 2 document but the policy it expressed, the November 1917 by British Foreign Minister

1 Lord Balfour to Lord Rothschild, then serving The Ottoman Empire’s defeat and Allied as the honorary president of the Zionist support for Zionism Federation of Great Britain and Ireland. In it, Balfour wrote that “His Majesty’s Government • The role of British as well as Australian and New view with favour the establishment in Palestine Zealand (ANZAC) military forces in capturing of a national home for the Jewish people, and Palestine from the Ottomans was a key factor will use their best endeavours to facilitate the as to why the British, rather than another achievement of this object, it being clearly country, publicly declared their support for a understood that nothing shall be done which Jewish national home in Palestine. However may prejudice the civil and religious rights of the establishment of a Jewish homeland in existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine Palestine was not solely a British policy but or the rights and political status enjoyed by was also clearly supported by policy-makers Jews in any other country.” from France, Italy, Russia and the US.

• Controversy continues to surround the issue • France was the first of the Allied powers to almost 100 years on, with supporters of Israel recognise the Jews as a distinct nationality celebrating it and Palestinians viewing it with French Foreign Minister Jules Cambon as a criminal act. The Palestine Liberation writing to Zionist leader Nahum Solokow in Organisation (PLO) recently raised the idea of June 1917 that “it would be a deed of justice suing the British government, and a year-long and of reparation to assist by the protection of campaign has been formally launched calling the Allied Powers, in the renaissance of the on Britain to atone for what is described as Jewish nationality in that Land from which the “big crime Britain committed against the the people of Israel were exiled so many Palestinian people”. In July 2016, Palestinian centuries ago”. In October 1917, US President Authority (PA) Minister Riyad al-Malki told Woodrow Wilson also expressed his support Arab League leaders that the Declaration for Zionism, approving a draft text of the “gave people who don’t belong there [the Declaration which he saw as a natural fit to his Jews] something that wasn’t theirs”. “New Diplomacy” that stressed national self- determination and democratic governance. • Historians have offered numerous reasons to In 1922 US Congress adopted a resolution explain the issuance of the Declaration. These declaring that a “national home for the Jewish range from trying to secure British control over people” be established in Palestine. a strategically important area near the Suez Canal; preventing the German government • Within Britain, it was the Labour Party from establishing its own relationship with that first publicly supported the Jewish the Zionist movement; the hope that the return to Palestine. Three months prior to Zionist movement in Russia would persuade the Declaration, the Party’s new post war their government to remain on the Allies’s guidelines stated that “Palestine should be set side in the First World War; Prime Minister free from the harsh and oppressive government David Lloyd George’s personal belief that of the Turk, in order that this country may form the Jews could provide better governance a Free State, under international guarantee, than the Arab inhabitants, and his religious to which such of the Jewish people as desire belief that facilitating a Jewish return to the to do so may return, and may work out their Holy Land was following God’s plan; the salvation free from interference by those of diplomatic activity and skill of Zionist leader alien race or religion”. Moreover, on the eve of Chaim Weizmann; and the argument that the San Remo Conference, the Labour Party wartime Britain and post-war Zionism shared neutralised attempts by left-wing groups identical interests and saw the Declaration as within the Party to identify Zionism with the “stepping stone” each needed to achieve British imperialism by giving its unqualified their aims. backing to Zionism. In a letter to Lloyd George, the Labour Party urged acceptance of • Moving beyond the historical debate the Mandate for Palestine “with a view of its about motivations, this paper analyses the being reconstituted as the national home of Declaration in its historical context, critically the Jewish people”. assessing its significance, and evaluating the extent to which it set the foundations for the • The Ottoman Empire (of which Palestine was establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. a part) entered and was subsequently defeated

2 in the First World War, which allowed Britain • Despite opposition among some locals to change its rhetorical sympathy for Zionism to Jewish immigration, Zionism was not towards active support for it. At that time, the inherently antithetical to the Arab leadership, Zionist movement’s call for statehood was one of and some viewed it as helping their own quest many nationalist movements – such as the Arab, for self-determination. The clearest evidence Turkish, Armenian, and Kurdish – who saw the of Arab understanding for Zionism appears end of empires as an opportunity to achieve self- in the Weizmann-Faisal Agreement signed in determination in their own homelands. London in 1919 on the eve of the Post-First World War Paris Peace Conference between Chaim Weizmann and Emir Faisal ibn Husain, Palestine before and after the First World War the leader of the Arab delegation to the Conference. The Agreement’s preamble stated • The Declaration neither signalled the start the “racial kinship and ancient bonds existing of a Jewish return to the Land of Israel / between the Arabs and the Jewish people” Palestine nor mass immigration to it. Jews as well as the realisation that “the surest had enjoyed a continuous presence in the means of working out the consummation area for centuries before the destruction of their natural aspirations is through of the Second Jewish Temple in 70 CE and the closest possible collaboration in the even after much of the population was development of the Arab State and Palestine”. expelled in the first and second century by Furthermore, the Agreement echoed the the Romans, Jews remained in the land and aims of the Declaration whereby each party achieved major cultural achievements, such committed all measure “to encourage and as the compilation of the fourth-century stimulate immigration of Jews into Palestine Jerusalem Talmud, and the establishment of on a large scale”. In a subsequent letter to Tzfat (Safed) as a centre for Jewish mystical Felix Frankfurter, President of the Zionist tradition in the 16th century. Organisation of America, Faisal wrote that: “The Arabs, especially the educated among • While the Land of Israel and a return to us, look with the deepest sympathy on the Zion had always maintained its centrality in Zionist movement... We are working together Jewish ritual and liturgy, modern day political for a reformed and revived Near East, and Zionism which called for the establishment of our two movements complete one another. a Jewish homeland and independent Jewish The Jewish movement is national and not life in the land of Israel emerged in Europe imperialist. Our movement is national and not in the late 19th century, inspired by other imperialist... Indeed I think that neither can be nations’ struggles for independence and as a real success without the other.” a response to persecution. Driven by waves of pogroms in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which killed over 60,000 Jews The Declaration in international legal context from 1881 to 1921, European Jews began immigrating to the area in significant numbers • The Declaration itself was not a legal in the 1880s, with most settling in Jerusalem document but the policy it expressed, the – which became a Jewish majority city – establishment of a Jewish national home in and smaller communities in Tzfat, Tiberias, Palestine, became binding in international Hebron and Jaffa. By 1914, 80,000-90,000 law following the San Remo Conference, Jews – approximately 8-10 per cent of the and the British Mandate from the League of total population – lived in Palestine without Nations. the assistance of any international state or sponsor. These Jewish immigrants were legal • The San Remo Conference, a meeting of the migrants in the same way that 120,000 Jews Allied Supreme Council following the First legally migrated from Eastern Europe to the World War transformed the Declaration into a UK between 1880-1914, and they lawfully legal commitment. The Conference agreed to and openly bought land – much of it barren create a Mandatory power within Palestine that wasteland uncultivated by local Arab farmers “should be responsible for putting into effect – from absentee land owners (virtually all of the declaration originally made on November the Jezreel Valley was purchased by Jews 2nd, 1917, by the Government of His Britannic from only two people – the Turkish Sultan Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in and a banker in Syria). favour of the establishment in Palestine of a

3 national home for the Jewish people”. Naming Israel’s application to the organisation by the the Jewish people as the cestui que trust to requisite two-thirds majority. Palestine and basing the future administration of the country upon the fulfilment of the Declaration was a highly significant step British policy in Palestine - Did the Declaration towards future sovereignty and similar to the make the creation of Israel inevitable? way in which the inhabitants of Iraq, Jordan and Syria received their sovereignty. • While the Declaration constituted an important component in building the legal • In 1922, the Council of the League of Nations basis for the establishment of the State of legally confirmed Britain as the Mandatory Israel as a homeland for the Jewish people, it power for Palestine, and stated that “the did not make such a homeland inevitable and Mandatory shall be responsible for placing the subsequent actions by Britain – motivated by country under such political, administrative an attempt to balance competing commitments and economic conditions as will secure the to Palestinian Jews and Arabs – actually establishment of the Jewish national home,” threatened its viability. and that “an appropriate Jewish agency shall be recognised as a public body for the • Balfour himself had interpreted the declaration purpose of advising and co-operating with the as ultimately advancing Jewish sovereignty Administration of Palestine in such economic, and statehood. In published minutes of a 31 social and other matters as may affect the October 1917 War cabinet meeting he wrote establishment of the Jewish national home”. that although the Declaration did not entail a The Council also provided “recognition…to the sovereign state immediately, his believed that historical connection of the Jewish people with a Jewish sovereign state “was a matter for Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting gradual development in accordance with the their national home in that country”. ordinary laws of political evolution”.

• International legal recognition of a Jewish • However, the Declaration was followed by a state in Mandatory Palestine was reinforced series of British White Papers that modified following the end of the Second World War the spirit of the Declaration commitment, when the British government turned the restricted Jewish immigration and put question of the future of the country over Jewish statehood under threat. In 1922 the to the UN, which subsequently established government released the Churchill White the United Nations Special Committee Paper, which partitioned off three-quarters of on Palestine (UNSCOP). The Committee the territory of Mandatory Palestine – located recommended the partition of Palestine east of the Jordan River – in order to create into separate Jewish and Arab states, with the Emirate of Transjordan (later the Kingdom Jerusalem under international control. On 29 of Jordan) and imposed limitations on Jewish November 1947, the UNGA voted in favour of immigration of the remaining territory. The Resolution 181, to approve the UNSCOP plan, 1930 Passfield White Paper, published after by 33 votes to 13. Arab riots of 1929 and later withdrawn, also recommended limiting Jewish immigration • While the Jewish Agency, representing the Most damaging to the hopes of establishing Jews of Palestine, accepted the plan, the Arab a Jewish homeland came with the publication Higher Committee, the Palestinian Arabs’ the 1939 White Paper on the eve of the Second political representatives, rejected it and World War, at a time when Jews in Europe Palestinian guerrilla forces began attacking were most dependent on Britain upholding Jewish communities. As the British Mandate its legal commitment to help facilitate Jewish formally ended on 14 May 1948 and David immigration to Palestine. The latter White Ben-Gurion declared the establishment of Paper which, in its own words “concedes the State of Israel in line with UN resolution the Arab claim [for self-determination] by 181, the country was in a state of internecine cancelling the Jewish claim” restricted violence and was was invaded by several Jewish immigration to 75,000 people over the neighbouring Arab countries. In March 1949, next five years, thus abandoning one of the UN Security Council Resolution 69 voted 9 to components in the Declaration and closing the 1 in favour of UN membership for Israel while borders of Palestine to hundreds of thousands in May, the UNGA Resolution 273 approved of Jews fleeing Nazi persecution.

4 • It is perhaps ironic that at one time or another during the Mandate period, British policy succeeded in leaving both supporters of Zionism and Palestinian-Arab nationalism deeply disappointed and frustrated.

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