Even Tom Segev notes:
The other part, which Schneer neglects to explore, was the genuine admiration many of Britain’s leaders, including Prime Minister David Lloyd George and Balfour himself, felt for the Jews and their history. These men were deeply religious Christian Zionists. They had grown up on the Bible; the Holy Land was their spiritual home. Modern Zionism, they believed, would fulfill a divine promise and resettle the Jews in the land of their ancient fathers.
As part of this context, Schneer expertly analyzes the passionate and fascinating controversy between non-Zionist and Zionist Jews that preceded the Balfour declaration. The Zionists spoke in the name of Jewish nationhood; their Jewish opponents denied that Jews even constituted a separate nation.
But with only one (!) reference to Jabotinsky, and that only in direct connection with the Jewish Legion and not any diplomatic work of Jabotinsky of which there is a record, the book is worthless as an academic source.
As long ago as 1956, Jabo's first biographer, Joseph Schechtman, in Vol. 1, pgs. 250- 253, brings documents and quotations including Weizmann's remark that his diplomacy for the Balfour Declaration was construcrted on the Jewish Legion:
I built on this foundation
Schneer could have argued against this interpretation but to ignore it?
That would be sneering in my book, Mr. Schneer.
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1 comment:
all you have to do is read the last paragraph of the excerpt available at WSJ
- no self-respecting historian would unsubstantiated like Schneer does claim that peasants' life became harder under new landlords. Harder as compared to what? That's polemic not history.
Silke
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