‗QUASI-BARBARIANS‘ AND ‗WANDERING JEWS‘: THE BALFOUR DECLARATION IN LIGHT OF WORLD EVENTS By MARYANNE AGNES RHETT A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY Department of History AUGUST 2008 © Copyright by MARYANNE AGNES RHETT, 2008 All Rights Reserved © Copyright by MARYANNE AGNES RHETT, 2008 All Rights Reserved To the Faculty of Washington State University: The members of the Committee appointed to examine the dissertation/thesis of MARYANNE AGNES RHETT find it satisfactory and recommend that it be accepted. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENT There are a number of people I feel a deep sense of gratitude toward in helping me get to the final stage of this process. Above all others, my sister Sarah has suffered through numerous run-on sentences, poor attempts at alliteration, and various Shiva-like ‗hands.‘ As a result, Sarah knows more about the Balfour Declaration than anyone else should, poor thing. But, where Sarah‘s help and support has been so has been my parents‘. Their love and support in this experience cannot be overstated. Their patience as I endeavor through yet another degree, in a state still farther from home has been amazing. Mom and Dad have encouraged me with their keen interest and unwavering desire to see the whole picture. To Sarah, Mom, and Dad: I love you! Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. Without my friends and colleagues, the Ph.D. process would have been disastrous. Amy Canfield, I mean, Dr. Amy Canfield, and I spent days on end struggling to get through the program, and the daily toils of graduate life. It seemed sometimes as if the illuminati would not prevail. Even from across the state she has helped remind me why I am doing this. Without her friendship (and sarcasm), it would have been a very different, and far less enjoyable, process. To Dr. Aditi Sen, too I am indebted for the coffee, the beer, the games, and the gossip. I am glad I had to opportunity to come to Vancouver. Similarly, Aaron Whelchel, Amitava Chowdhury, and Barbara Traver (of whom more than thanks for just being a friend should be said) have worked right alongside me in their own doctoral adventures. Knowing that I am not going through this alone has been an immeasurable help. And finally, Colin Meckel has been by my side in more iii anxious moments at the end of this whole thing than almost anyone. He has let me have my moments of near insanity and is still there to help me relax and have fun, not forgetting that the dissertation is important, but reminding me that it is not the only thing in life. I look forward to reaping the benefits of all of this hard work with him and all my friends and family in the coming months and years! My professors. In 1996, as a freshman in an international studies class at the University of South Carolina I first met Edwin Montagu, and it is Dr. Shahrough Akhavi I have to thank. Dr. Akhavi has been, and continues to be, a huge influence on my life. However, while he saw me through my most trying academic years, it was at Washington State University, under the guidance of Drs. Heather Streets and Robert Staab, that I ultimately developed my academic voice. Dr. Streets has been a dear friend and a dedicated professor. She has helped me improve my writing and my intellectual pursuits to a degree such that I really feel ready for my next academic challenge. Dr. Staab has been my Middle East confident. We were unique in our interest in the turmoil and turbulence of the Middle East, and to him I owe the deepest debt of gratitude for keeping me on track and focused. I could not have gotten here, or the places I have yet to go, without their help. Finally, no historian does her (or his) work without those wonderful people who bring to us the documents upon which it solidly rests. I spent enormous amounts of time in England combing through a variety of manuscripts and governmental documents and never once did I have a negative experience in the archives. The Wren Library at Trinity College Cambridge, the Public Records Office at Kew, the British Library, the London Metropolitan Archives, and the House of Lords Archives at Parliament were all wonderful places to work. With friendly, patient, and helpful staff the research experience was made immensely easier. I look forward to returning iv soon. What is more, without the generous financial support from the Gillis family, the Cooney family, and the Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry, none of those hours in the archives would have been possible. Thank you all. v ‗QUASI-BARBARIANS‘ AND ‗WANDERING JEWS‘: THE BALFOUR DECLARATION IN LIGHT OF WORLD EVENTS Abstract by Maryanne Agnes Rhett, Ph.D. Washington State University August 2008 Chair: Heather E. Streets On 2 November 1917, the British government formally issued the Balfour Declaration, one of the most important documents in defining the Middle East for the coming century. The Declaration laid the groundwork for the eventual creation of the state of Israel while at the same time problematizing the concept of ‗nation‘ for the entire world. This dissertation looks beyond the two traditional explanations for why the Declaration was created: British martial and imperial wartime need or the moral obligation felt by some influential politicians to the world‘s Jewry. These accounts, while useful and necessary, only narrowly demonstrate the document‘s significance, exclude factors which helped to create it, and prevent an examination of those global realities which developed as a result of its issuance. Instead, this work examines the Declaration in terms of the global context, broadening the scope of the document‘s significance and creating a clearer picture of the global community as a composite of individual actors, regional pressures, and trans-regional realities. Crucial to this discussion is the impact ideals of race, gender, and nation had on policy-making structures and how events in Palestine, India, Kenya, Ireland and Europe influenced the Declaration‘s formation, issuance, and outcomes. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................... iii ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................... vi CHAPTER 1. AN INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................1 A Historiographic Overview ...........................................................................................6 2. CONTEST FOR NATION .....................................................................................................15 Nationalism in Nineteenth Century Rhetoric ................................................................15 Jewish Zionism .............................................................................................................19 Traditional Zionism: Cultural, Economic, and Philanthropic ................................20 Political Zionism ....................................................................................................26 Christian Zionism ..........................................................................................................32 Christian Zionism as a Political Tool.....................................................................40 Nationalism in the Muslim World.................................................................................44 Nationalism in India ...............................................................................................48 Arab Nationalism ...................................................................................................57 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................63 3. THE QUESTION OF RACE AND THE ‗RIGHT TO RULE‘ .............................................65 Muscular Christianity and the Imperial Process ...........................................................67 The Modammedan Question .........................................................................................73 Islam‘s Place in European Imagination .................................................................75 The Arab Case: Quasi-Barbarians and Very Old Children ...........................................84 vii The Indian Colonialist and the Racial Politics of Empire .............................................92 The Great Rebellion ...............................................................................................93 The Ilbert Bill: Race and Gender Formalized in Policy ........................................95 Race and Indian Imperial Rights Overseas ............................................................98 The Jewish Case: The Re-Masculinization of Judaism...............................................106 Muscular Judaism as an Extension of Muscular Christianity ..............................123 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................127 4. PERSONALITY AND THE INDIVIDUAL .......................................................................129 The Power of the Pen: Writers and the Question of Zionism .....................................130 The Journalist and Editors ...................................................................................131 The Novelist .........................................................................................................139