Palestinian Rights in the Balfour Declaration?

 I just came across this article:

The Balfour Declaration in International Law

which concludes so:

"The Balfour Declaration may have continuing legal relevance—not as a promise of a Jewish national home, which has already been fulfilled, but as a promise for Palestinian rights."

I was so taken aback that I wrote the author so:

If the term used to describe other persons than Jews was simply "non-Jewish communities", which indicated Arabs, Armenians, Syrians, Moslems, Christians and what not, and in the subsequent League of Nations Mandate, that phrase becomes "the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion" while the terms "the Jewish national home"  and "a national home for the Jewish people" are used, and if, in the 1919 agreement between Faisal and Weizmann we find the use of "the Arab State and Palestine", what would provide you any basis for assuming there were/are "Palestinan rights" that apply specifically to a social or national group of Arabs?

To be continued.

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Lord Curzon Wasn't Really an Anti-Zionist

Promoters of Palestinianism point to Lord Curzon as a possible savior who could have prevented the British Government's pro-Zionism World War One policy. Here is one source.

One of them is Karl Sabbagh who wrote in the Guardian back in 2017

If only Lord Curzon, who succeeded Balfour, had been foreign secretary in 1917 we might have had a very different outcome. He wrote in a private letter to Balfour at the time: “I do not myself recognise that the connection of the Jews with Palestine, which terminated 1,200 years ago, gives them any claims whatsoever.

But in his December 5, 1917 report to the Cabinet he seems quite clear about the future political siutation of Jews in Palestine:    

There will be a national home for Jews in Palestine and it will be equal to the "chance" that the Arabs will have.

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Did Balfour Mean a "State" When He Wrote "Home"?

In Balfour's mind, did a Jewish national "home" mean a "state"?

From a May 2, 1918 memorandum published in a July 1918 collection:

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TE Lawrence's "the Jewish section"

On September 7, 1917, this covering letter was sent by TE Lawrence to Gilbert F. Clayton who was a British Army intelligence officer and after World War One, a colonial administrator. At this time, he was supervising those involved in the Arab Revolt. 

H.M.S. "HARDINGE"

7.9.17

Dear General Clayton

I enclose a note which I wrote to Sir Mark Sykes. Some of it is really thirst for information, and other is only a wish to stick pins into him. If you approve will you send it on? One must have the Jewish section cleared up: and I fancy we may (if we win) clear up the French section ourselves. If you approve part and dislike part,  please black out the bad and send it as mutilated.

Yours sincerely,

T E Lawrence

[in Clayton's hand] Not Sent 

The site explains that on July 6, 1917, a legion of Arab riders captured the heavily-fortified seaport of Aqaba, after what was thought to be an impossible journey: a torturous six-hundred-mile ride through the desert, and descent from the interior to the unguarded eastern side of the town.

The daring assault was conceived of, and led by, a sole English officer, Captain T.E. Lawrence...and what he wanted, desperately, was Arab hegemony from Damascus all the way down through the Arabian peninsula. Standing in the way of his visionary Kingdom, however, stood the Jews, the French and, as he would ultimately come bitterly to comprehend, the British establishment itself.

Here Lawrence famously writes to his superior at the Arab Bureau, General Clayton, to ask whether he should send a just-penned letter to Sir Mark Sykes in which he inquires, inter alia, about Zionist aims. “One must,” he tells Clayton, “have the Jewish section cleared up; and I fancy we may (if we win) clear up the French section ourselves.” Clayton, as noted in autograph at the bottom of the letter, advised Lawrence not to forward his letter to Mark Sykes – but a record of the unsent letter survived nonetheless. That missive is crucial to understanding exactly why Lawrence wanted the “Jewish section cleared up” – and addresses, en passant , Lawrence’s conflict with the Zionist pioneer Aaron Aaronsohn and, by extension, those Zionist converts within the British establishment, like Sykes (and Balfour, Orsmby-Gore, Deedes and Meinertzhagen), whom Aaronsohn had influenced.

We need recall that the letter is penned two months prior to the issuing of the Balfour Declaration. In other words, he is aware, in the middle of his military campaign and in the middle of the desert, that the Jews are to be able to rule over territory.

The enclosed content:

“General Clayton showed me a letter from you which contained a message to myself - and this has prompted me to ask you a few queries about Near East affairs. I hope you will be able to give me an idea of how matters stand in reference to them, since part of the responsibility of action is inevitably thrown on to me, and, unless I know more or less what is wanted, there might be trouble. “About the Jews in Palestine, Feisal has agreed not to operate or agitate west of the [Wadi] Araba-Dead Sea-Jordan line, or south of the Haifa-Beisan line . . . “You know of course the root differences between the Palestine Jew and the colonist Jew: to Feisal the important point is that the former speak Arabic, and the latter German Yiddish. He is in touch with the Arab Jews (their H.Q. at Safed and Tiberias is in his sphere) and they are ready to help him, on conditions. They show a strong antipathy to the colonist Jews, and have even suggested repressive measures against them. Feisal has ignored this point hitherto, and will continue to do so. His attempts to get into touch with the colonial Jews have not been very fortunate. They say they have made their arrangements with the Great Powers, and wish no contact with the Arab Party. They will not help the Turks or the Arabs. Now Feisal wants to know (information had better come to me for him since I usually like to make up my mind before he does) what is the arrangement standing between the colonist Jews (called Zionists sometimes) and the Allies . . . What have you promised the Zionists, and what is their programme? “I saw Aaronson in Cairo, and he said at once the Jews intended to acquire the land-rights of all Palestine from Gaza to Haifa, and have practical autonomy therein. Is this acquisition to be by fair purchase or by forced sale and expropriation? The present half-crop peasantry were the old freeholders and under Moslem landlords may be ground down but have fixity of tenure. Arabs are usually not employed by Jewish colonies. Do the Jews propose the complete expulsion of the Arab peasantry, or their reduction to a day-labourer class? “You know how the Arabs cling even to bad land and will realise that while Arab feelings didn't matter under Turkish rule . . . the condition will be vastly different if there is a new, independent, and rather cock-a-hoop Arab state north and east and south of the Jewish state. “I can see a situation arising in which the Jewish influence in European finance might not be sufficient to deter the Arab peasants from refusing to quit - or worse!”

Lawrence’s reading of the upcoming Arab-Zionist situation was clear: a Jewish state established in Palestine, he feared the Arab movement would come to an end. But, indeed, that was the whole purpose of the Balfour Declaration. Hence, his interest in “clearing up” the Jewish and French “sections", i.e. geopoliticall territories. 

But even as he was promising Prince Feisal an empire consisting of the Ottoman territories from Damascus to the Arabian peninsula, the British and French had already decided to carve the region up between them - regardless of the wishes of the Arabs, the Jews, or anyone else who might be living in the territories in question.

____________

*Lawrence’s reference to Aaronsohn’s remarks is particularly interesting, inasmuch as Aaronsohn left an account of the meeting at which he made them. “This morning I had a conversation with Capt. Lawrence,” he wrote in his diary on 12 August 1917. “An interview without any evidence of friendliness. Lawrence had too much success at too early an age. Has a very high estimation of his own self. He is lecturing me on our colonies, on the spirit of the people, on the feelings of the Arabs, and we would do well in being assimilated by them, by the sons of Arab etc. While listening to him I imagined to be present at the lecture of a Prussian scientific anti-Semite expressing himself in English. I am afraid that many of the archaeologists and reverends have been imbued by 'l'esprit boche'. He is openly against us. He is basically of missionary stock.” Aaronsohn’s assessment of Lawrence as an anti-Semite stands in stark contrast to Chaim Weizmann’s opinion that Lawrence’s relationship to the Zionist movement was a very positive one, in spite of his strongly pro-Arab sympathies.

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Palestine Arab Rejectionism

A very early example of the ongoing until this very day the preference of Arabs promoting "Palestine" to adopt rejectionism:

HL Deb 27 March 1923 vol 53 cc639-69

LORD ISLINGTON had placed the following Notice on the Paper:—

Legislative Council just concluded in Palestine it is not a fact that the whole Arab electorate refrained from voting in protest against the new Constitution...

Islington moved to cancel Britain's Mandate over Palestine the following year. He initiated several anti-Zionist debates in the House of Lords. He was one of a group of Lords that included Lamington, Sydenham, Curzon, Northcliffe and Beaverbrook who were unfavorably disposed to Jews and exhibited anti-Zionist positions and opinions.

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MacDonald Does In The Jews in 1939

What was the understanding of the phrase "civil and religious rights" contained in the League of Nations Mandate decision of 1922?

That Mandate decision's preamble, in part, reads

the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2nd, 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favor of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, 

Let's review the person in charge in 1939, Malcolm MacDonald, the then Colonial Secretary, responsible for the infamous White Paper of that year.  While the new policy radically altered the Mandate's premise, severely restricted Jewish immigration and limited land purchases, MacDonald was confronted by the commission members' questions regarding the obvious distinction made by the original Mandate decision between the rights and privileges of the two ocommunities residing in the country.

Here is from his statement on June 15, 1939 at the Permanent Mandates Commission in Geneva:

The authors of the Balfour Declaration and of the mandate who envisaged duties towards the Jews and duties towards the Arabs, which should be of equal weight, cannot have supposed that those duties would be in conflict, but that they would be mutually reconcilable. They cannot have intended that these two sets of obligations should contradict each other, and meet only in a violent clash. What then are these obligations? On the one hand was the promise of "the establishment in Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish people" and on the other was the assurance that "nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine"...

But they could contradict as the intentions of the framers was that the country become the Jewish National Home. 

Let me examine these undertakings further. First, the term "National Home" which is used throughout the Declaration and the mandate, is somewhat ambiguous and has been open to various interpretations. It has been claimed that it meant that Palestine should ultimately become a Jewish State. There can be no doubt that the possibility of a Jewish State was not excluded; it was regarded as a definite possibility by some of the leading statesmen who were familiar with the intentions of those who drew up the Balfour Declaration. Thus President Wilson spoke early in 1919 of laying in Palestine "the foundations of a Jewish Commonwealth", and General Smuts towards the end of the same year foretold an increasing stream of Jewish immigration into the country and "in generations to come a great Jewish State rising there once more". His Majesty's Government accept that the possibility of Palestine becoming a Jewish State was not precluded.

The obvious become "ambiguous". 

Yet in the Balfour Declaration and the mandate the terms Jewish State and Jewish Commonwealth are not employed. Instead, a term which was without precedent in constitutional charters, a term which lacked clear definition, the term "Jewish National Home" was used. It was deliberately used...Those responsible for the Balfour Declaration and the mandate were aware of these uncertainties hidden in the future, and so they chose deliberately to describe this part of their objective in Palestine by a phrase--"a Jewish National Home"--which might mean either a Jewish State or else something very much less.

Might. 

...From the beginning, the Balfour Declaration recognised certain duties to the non-Jewish population. While promising the Jewish people a National Home, it declared that "nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine". This principle is reflected in the operative clauses of the mandate where--for example, in Article 2--it is laid down that "the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants" are to be safeguarded, and in Article 6 that "the rights and position" of the non-Jewish sections of the population are not to be prejudiced.

However, since nothing comparable to a "national home" was promised to the non-Jewish residents, it would seem obvious that the Jews were awarded a certain political primacy. 

There has sometimes been controversy as to what these phrases were intended to mean. Some exponents have sought to minimise the significance of the words and to suggest, for instance, that "civil rights" meant little more than civic rights. That is an untenable position...

Why untenable? 

And he goes off to discussing an irrelvelant document. Gibberash, actually.

...That assurance to the Arabs [referring to the Hogarth mission] must surely mean that Palestine could not one day become a Jewish State against the will of the Arabs in the country.

He continues to misinterpret the phrase: 

The words of the Balfour Declaration on the matter are strong. "Nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities". The mandate says that the Administration "while ensuring that the rights and position of the other section of the population are not prejudiced, shall facilitate immigration under suitable conditions". The rights referred to are the normal political rights of a people. And, normally, those rights would include the power to have their voice heard against a flow of immigration which threatened to relegate them to a position of virtual inferiority in their own country. It seems to His Majesty's Government that the rights guaranteed to the Arabs in the mandate would be definitely prejudiced if, now that immigration has made the Jewish population a vast proportion of the whole population, and given it a position already of economic dominance, the mandatory Power were to continue to permit indefinitely a flow of further immigration against a strong national protest which is supported by every articulate section of Arab opinion.

Note: immigration of...Jews.  Settlement on the land by...Jews.  Obviously there is a distinction.  The whole idea behind the Mandate was, indeed, to turn it into a Jewish national home.

Perfidious Albion.

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The Territoriality of the Balfour Declaration

It is a staple of Arab propaganda that the Balfour Declaration promised the Jews a "national home" in Palestine, not that all of Palestine should become a Jewish state.

They quote this portion:

"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people,

and claim that if the Zionist version is correct, it should have read something like:

"His Majesty's Government agree that Palestine should become the national home for the Jewish people, viewing its establishment with favour".

But what they ignore is that at the time of its issuance, Palestine, "historic Palestine" extended into Lebanon in the north and Transjordan to the east.

In 1919, the Zionists presented a map of their territorial claims to the Versailles Peace Conference. 

The British also presented a proposal that included parts of Syria and Transjordan. As I once wrote:

Zionism has been yielding territory since 1919

After removing Transjordan from Jewish settlement rights in 1922 and earlier, awarding part of northern Palestine to the French Mandate over Syria, we still have all of Western historic Palestine as the Jewish national home. By right.

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Gordis Left Out One Important Episode

In his March 22 "The Universalist Impulse and Israel's Being", Rabbi Dr. Daniel Gordis zeroes in on the reality of Diaspora-Israel relations, stating

that the roots of American-Jewish distaste for Israel antedate even the Jewish state itself

While he mentions the Reform movement’s 1885 Pittsburgh Platform, he then jumps to 1948 and Joseph Proskauer, president of the American Jewish Committee to illustrate the decidedly non-Zionist character of America's Jewish establishment in too many forms.

One thing he did skip over, and which I consider important, is that American Jews not only expressed discomfort with Zionism or declared that Zionism was not their cup of tea but that they actively sought, at times, to undermine, politically, the Zionist effort.

One, of course, was the American Council for Judaism.

Another was even more invidious.

As I had blogged previously, on March 9, 1919, 299 Reform Rabbis intervened to attempt to halt President Woodrow Wilson from proclaiming agreement with the Balfour Declaration and its role in the post-World War I political reality.

Their letter was published in the New York Times and eventually gathered over 300 supporters.  It included this theme:

We raise our voice in warning and protest against the demand of the Zionists for the reorganization of the Jews as a national unit, to whom, now or in the future, territorial sovereignty in Palestine shall be committed...We reject the Zionist project of a "national home for the Jewish people in Palestine"

and they continued there:

We protest against the political segregation of the Jews, and the re-establishment in Palestine of a distinctly Jewish state.

Among the signatories were

1. Congressman Julius Kahn, R-CA. 
2. U.S. Ambassador to Turkey, Henry Morgenthau
3. Simon Rosendale, Attny.General , State of NY, founder of the Jewish
Publication Society.
4. Simon Wolf, U.S. Consul in Egypt
5. Max Senior, 1st Pres. National Conference of Jewish Charities
6. Dr. Morris Jastrow Jr., Professor of Semitic Languages, U.of Penn. &
Librarian of the University.
7. Rabbi Henry Berkowitz, 1st Sec. of the Central Conference of American
Rabbis (CCAR - Reform Mvmt.)
8. Rabbi David Philipson, founder and past pres. CCAR
9. Jesse Isidor Strauss, Pres. Macy's, Ambassador to France
10. E. Robert A. Seligman, Prof. Political Economy and Finance, Columbia U.
11. Jacob H. Hollander, Prof. Economics Johns Hopkins U.
12. Adolph Simon Ochs, publisher The New York Times 

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Balfour Declaration Followed by the Talaat Pasha Declaration

History, not fake news:-

A few months after the issuance of the Balfour Declaration, the leader of the Zionist movement, Chaim Weizmann, who had played an important role in its issuance, led a Zionist commission to the Middle East to explore ways and means for implementing the declaration, including “the establishment of good relations with the Arabs and other non-Jewish communities in Palestine.”

In Cairo, he managed to persuade a number of prominent exiled Syrian and Palestinian nationalists “that Zionism has come to stay, that it is far more moderate in its aims than they had anticipated and that by meeting it in a conciliatory spirit they are likely to reap substantial benefits in the future.” Healso succeeded in allaying the fears of the Egyptian Sultan (later King) Fuad of Zionism’s alleged designs on Islam’s holy places, especially its supposed intention to destroy the Dome of the Rock and to reestablish the Jewish temple on its ruins.

Yet his most important achievement was the establishment of a personal relationship with Emir Faisal ibn Hussein of “Great Arab Revolt” fame...The two struck an immediate rapport in their first meeting (on 4 June 1918), with Faisal readily conceding “the necessity for cooperation between Jews and Arabs” and “the possibility of Jewish claims to territory in Palestine.” Yet it took several moremonths and a string of further meetings for the two to sign an agreement (on 3 January 1919) supporting the creation of a Jewish national home in Palestine in accordance with the Balfour Declaration and the adoption of all necessary measures “to encourage and stimulate immigration of Jews into Palestine on a large scale.”

In a letter to a prominent American Zionist a couple of months later, Faisal amplified this pledge: “We Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with the deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement … and we regard [the Zionist demands] as moderate and proper. We will do our best, in so far as we are  concerned, to help them through: we will wish the Jews a most hearty welcome home.”

Nor was Faisal the only regional leader to accept the Jewish right to national revival. 

On 12 August 1918, the Ottoman Grand Vizier Talaat Pasha issued an official communique expressing “sympathies for the establishment of a Jewish religious and national center in Palestine” and offering “to put this work under the high protection of the Ottoman Empire, and to promote it by all means which are compatible with the sovereign rights of the Ottoman Empire that do not affect the rights of the non-Jewish population.”

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Haaretz and the Balfour Declaration

If I had the time, one way to spend it would be to review in depth the Haaretz line-up this year for the centenary of the Balfour Declaration, and even include some from previous years, to show the paper's utter contempt for Zionism.

Take for example, this op-ed which bemoans

the racism of the British government 100 years ago, which disturbingly, continues to reverberate in the conflict to this day.

and that

The British government’s interest in the weapon of supposed Jewish power far outweighed their concern with the future of Zionism in the Holy Land.They did not engage in any wartime planning regarding the development of "a national home for the Jewish people." 

and

the Cabinet had no intention of giving Judaea to the Jews

and

British Orientalists saw the Palestinian population, instead, as an impure mix of different races, who were not 'authentic', 'racial' Arabs. This was why the Declaration invoked the phrase "non-Jewish communities" to describe the Arabs who constituted approximately 90% of the population.

If Ken Livingston and crew accuse Zionism of collaborating/cooperating with Nazism, well this predates Zionism's "sins".

In an earlier article, four years ago, the author, James Renton, a Senior Lecturer in History at Edge Hill University whose lectures  have been sponsored by anti-Zionists, wrote in Haaretz that

the Balfour Declaration of 1917 was based on miscalculations, anti-Semitism and propaganda

Some of the other articles this year included

The Curse of the Balfour Declaration

Balfour Declaration Wasn't About Israel

Balfour Declaration's Legacy Is Toxic for Both Israelis and Palestinians

Balfour's Original Sin

How India's Muslim Backlash, Led by Jinnah, Thwarted the Balfour Declaration

Britain Facilitated Palestine's Ethnic Cleansing. Today, Britain's Celebrating It

Britain's Broken Its Promises to the Palestinians From Balfour Onwards.

Now It Must Make Amends

(which uncritically quotes a Gazan Arab saying: 

“The Jewish people took their rights after Hitler 

committed massacres against them...

Britain gave our lands to the Israelis 

and they never cared to give us our rights.")

Oh, there were some good ones.  Here. Here. And here. Even here.

The paper, however, was negatively overloaded, and I am not inclduing the "news" stories on the events and how they spun out.

Zionist history, a la Haaretz.

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A Post-Balfour Post

The Balfour Declaration has come, and gone.

Now for a short post-Balfour observation.

The Declaration and Balfour personally were attacked, some starting about three years ago.  Haaretz was in the thick of it.  How dare the liberators of the Ottoman Empire do what they wished to do?  

No matter that the Arabs were engaged in the very same diplomacy maneuvering as the Zionists, McMahon-Hussein and Lawrence and all that.

You have this, too:

Lawrence guided the prince into the terrible error of signing a document that appeared to provide Arab support for a Jewish Palestine. Lawrence, an artisan of half-truths, likely provided purposefully misleading translations in the meetings held between Faisal and Chaim Weizmann, head of the British Zionist Federation and later first president of Israel, glossing over the (very substantial) differences between the two sides and staging a reconciliation between Arab and Zionist interests. At best, it was a clumsy attempt to save British honor from the awful embarrassment of its conflicting wartime commitments in the Hussein–McMahon Correspondence, which included Palestine in the Arab kingdom [really? the British Government have held that the intent of the McMahon Correspondence was not to promise Palestine to Hussein], and the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which promised a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

I'll make it short.

Were the Zionists all that bad in trying to regain the historic homeland?

Consider this:

anti-imperialists, such as Mohandas Gandhi and WEB Du Bois, vigorously supported the war aims of their white overlords, hoping to secure dignity for their compatriots in the aftermath.

Zionism equals Gandhi.

Consider that.

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Maybe A Smirky Laugh, Too?

The farce gets more farcical as the Palestinian Authority says legal proceedings will soon start against British government:

alleged Foreign Minister Riyad Malki said that legal proceedings against the British government will be soon brought before British, European and international courts to lift the injustice inflicted on the Palestinian people by the Balfour Declaration.

He said in a statement that the alleged State of Palestine "made every effort possible to persuade the British government to abandon plans to celebrate the centennial of the Balfour Declaration because such a celebration shows lack of sensitivity to the Palestinian people.”

However, because these efforts have failed to yield results and because of its moral and national obligation towards its people, the Foreign and Expatriates Ministry will soon act to bring legal proceedings before the British courts against the British government to remedy its mistake of 100 years, Malki said.

May I suggest to the British Government and others one line of defense:

at the time there was no concept of  a "Palestinian people".  Indeed there was no "Palestine" in recognized borders and there surely was no state o that name.

Moreover, the so-called "Palestinian people" then referred to themselves as Southern Syrians even in 1926.

And in addition, the Arabs welcomed the Declaration and Faisal signed an agreement to that effect.

Of course, the lawyers could simply stand up in court and start laughing.  It needn't be too smirky, though.

___________

P.S.

As someone wrote to me now:

They are suing the wrong people, the Declaration was only an aspirational letter. If anyone is to be sued it would be the League of Nations.

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From "State" to Home", An Observation

Richard Meinertzhagen has written in his diary, Middle East Diary, 1917–1956, published in 1959, p. 104, that "L.G. [David Lllyod George] and A.J.B. [Arthur James Balfour] both said that by the declaration they always meant an eventual Jewish State".  This was stated at a meeting at Balfour's home on July 22, 1922. 

Indeed, the first real draft, as suggested by Harry Sacher, did include the word "state":

And that state was to be reconstituted, a term that was kept and appears in the original document as well as in the League of Nations decision to award Great Britain the Mandate over Palestine.

A second observation in reviewing the drafts is that the "non-Jewish communities" also appears early on

but not in the July 17th draft

It enters the text only in the Milner–Amery draft of October 4, 1917.

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Balfour Bluster

Here is a former Member of Knesset talking about protests planned for the Balfour Declaration centenary:

Mohammed Baraka, the chairman of the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee, concurred. “I don’t see anything wrong with Palestinian citizens of Israel expressing their opposition to the declaration, which had consequences for the entire Palestinian nation everywhere. There was no British Mandate in the country in 1917, and yet someone without a mandate awarded national rights to someone who didn’t deserve them and completely ignored the national rights of the Palestinians in the country, and the ramifications of this declaration continue until today, including the nation-state bill laid before the Knesset.”

Let us consider four elements in that excerpt.


1.  "the entire Palestinian nation everywhere"

The Palestinian nation considered itself as the Southern Syrians until the 1920s. They demanded of the League of Nations to be rejoined to Syria rather than be a Palestine Mandate.  In fact, they had no specific "Palestine" national consciousness. Nowhere was there a "Palestinian nation".

2. "someone without a mandate"

The Allies were the liberators of the Ottoman Empire and possessed all legal rights to allot territories.  In fact, Arabs appealed to them to obtain recognition for their own states.

3. "someone who didn’t deserve them"

Jews most assuredly did deserve to have their historic national homeland reconstituted.

4.  "ignored the national rights of the Palestinians in the country"

Arabs were seen to have no national rights but only civil and religious rights.  The national rights were not ignored but rather not recognized.

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BICOM Redefines the Balfour Declaration

James Sorene, CEO at the Britain Israel Communications & Research Centre (Bicom), penned an op-ed on the Balfour Declaration published in The Telegraph.  I quickly tweeted a reaction and now, I enlarge my thoughts.

As the Jewish Chronicle informed us last year, "eyebrows were raised when James Sorene was appointed as chief executive of research group Bicom" as he was a key adviser to Nick Clegg during the former Liberal Democrat leader's time as Deputy Prime Minister, a time of a not very delightful relationship of that party with the Jewish community.  One excuse offered was that as "Clegg's official spokesman and communications director, he was a senior civil servant, completely detached from party politics." 

Sorry, but that is, and I know from personal experience, well, let's just say an exaggerated untruth.

He seems to have started his career in public affairs at the Israeli embassy in London.  So how did he arrive at the content he published?  Or should I actually write 'it's no wonder he wrote what he wrote'?

I don't criticise necessarily his personal political outlook.  My experience in London taught me that.  I am disappointed simple historical narratives are either insufficient or a bit twisted.

For example, Exhibit One:

Britain was now in control of vast territories, including Egypt, Palestine and another new creation – Iraq. In addition, Britain offered the Arabs independence in return for fighting the Ottomans, but they also promised the Zionists a Jewish home in Palestine.

In which countries was that independence promised?  Not in Palestine.  That country was to be for the Jews.  In it, Jews were to be the primary national grouping whereas others, defined simply as "non-Jews", and "Arabs" were not specifically mentioned in this context - not in Balfour, nor San Remo nor the Mandate.  A country, until July 1922, that included all of Transjordan, a country whose boundaries to the east were quite unclear at the time which is why Article 25 of the Mandate reads: 

In the territories lying between the Jordan and the eastern boundary of Palestine as ultimately determined

In fact, the Arabs residing in the area that became Palestine demanded reunion with a Greater Syria as they considered themselves then, and for many years afterward, to be Southern Syrians.

Exhibit Two:

Winston Churchill, the colonial secretary, told Arab leaders the declaration was “manifestly right”, while assuring them the Jewish national home wouldn’t be created in all of Palestine, but without suggesting where it would be.

That, of course, is referring to the 1922 White Paper, formulated basically by Herbert Samuel, once a maximalist and now, a High Commissioner.  But to be correct, that policy statement was forthcoming because in April 1920, May 1921 and November 1921 Arabs rioted and killed Jews.  British policy didn't alter do to a reassessment of Zionism's value but the British were fearful.  And cowardly.  Samuel 'helped' matters by appointing Haj Amin al-Husseini as the Mufti.  

That White Paper baldly reinterpreted the Balfour Declaration with hindsight born of fear and from quite some pressure from anti-Semitic British officials in Jerusalem and stated:

the terms of the Declaration referred to do not contemplate that Palestine as a whole should be converted into a Jewish National Home, but that such a Home should be founded `in Palestine.' 

And let us not forget that Churchill already in March 1921 awarded a Saudi Arabian, who first came to Transjordan in November 1920 to assist his brother regain a throne in Damascus, that land mass as an emirate and later, a kingdom.

The White Paper, as an example, quotes a 1921 Zionist Congress resolution in its favor but in 1923, the Zionist Congress bemoaned the loss of Transjordan which the delegates viewed as
"one historical, geographic and economic unit" and "in accordance with the legitimate demands of the Jewish people", the Congress expected that an expression of such will be achieved in Transjordan and eventually it will be carried out.


Exhibit Three:

Balfour’s declaration had great moral purpose, but was implemented without clarity, vision or the necessary resources. The sad truth is that British rule amounted to conflict management, when its focus should have been to design a two-state solution from the beginning.

But there was, from the beginning, however unfortunate I think that "solution", a two-state solution: Jewish Palestine and an Arab Palestine.  Should there now be a three-state solution? Two Arab countries in historic Palestine and one Jewish one? Two Arab states with no Jews and one Jewish state with, at present, almost 20% Arabs?  Is that a moral political policy? Is that visionary? 

I also would suggest there was much clarity of purpose and intent, and it was to minimize Jewish national aspirations and accomplishments.  It was to limit land purchases.  It was to prevent millions of Jews escaping Hitler's clutches in Europe.  It was to to coddle the most racist and vicious terror master that was the Mufti.  It was to establish a discriminatory status quo at Jewish religious sites.  It was to accept separate seating of the Arab and Zionist delegations, on two separate floors, at the St. James Conference in early 1939.  It was to thwart the 1938 Evian Conference.

The Palestinian Authority's dictator, now in his eleventh year since his election, demands Britain apologize for the Balfour Declaration.  As many have noted, Great Britain should apologize for not fulfilling the Balfour Declaration.

Some of the above could have been included in Sorene's piece for after all, BICOM's aim is 

to increase understanding of Israel and the Middle East in the UK. We believe in the right of the State of Israel to live in peace and security"

even as it believes in 

the right of the Palestinians to an independent state brought about through a negotiated agreement. 

That aim does include beclouding historical truths.

UPDATE


Sorene has seen this post and is not impressed.

He has an article in the Fathom's Balfour Centenary booklet, "BRITISH POLICY IN PALESTINE 1917–1925", and I bring just one short bit:

Notice his confusing the concept of the borders of the Mandate, which until the July 1922 decision still included Transjordan in the international bodies dealing with the issue and the British machinations to remove Transjordan already begun in 1920 and basically finalized, in their minds, in March 1921.  The British were already formulating a reneging on the promises of the territory.

But what is more important, Sorene, representing a pro-Israel group, should certainly highlight that essentially, the two-state plan began at that time - and was a failure then just as it was in 1937 and later at the UN in 1947.  Why is he still beating a dead horse?

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Quick Fisk of "Britain & Palestine"

The anti-Zionist "Balfour Project" site - they assert that there was a ‘sacred trust’of England to facilitate Palestinian independence which is still to be fulfilled (there wasn't and in fact, Arabs were not even mentioned in the Balfour Declaration the Versailles Peace Conference, the San Remo Conference and the League of Nations Mandate decision, 5:05) - has produced a film.

Here are just a few fisking points:

1. Gt. Britain's involvement in Palestine with its consuls from 1839 and the whole Christain Restoration ideology for some three centuries - starting with the 1621 pamphlet of MP Sir Henry Finch is ignored (1:08) but is later mentioned (5:23). It's political analysis leads off with an immediate introduction of World War One.

2.  What do they mean by "all of Palestine"? (2:00)  TransJordan included? If so, what happened to it? Why was it excluded from the terms of the Mandate which were to reconstitute the national homeland for the Jews?

3. A "first promise" of the "contradictory promises" (3:01) is that of McMahon.  But what of the November 9, 1914 meeting of the British Cabinet?  Here:

Zionism was first discussed at a British Cabinet level on 9 November 1914, four days after Britain's declaration of war on the Ottoman Empire. David Lloyd George, then Chancellor of the Exchequer "referred to the ultimate destiny of Palestine."...In a discussion after the meeting with fellow Zionist and President of the Local Government Board Herbert Samuel, Lloyd George assured him that "he was very keen to see a Jewish state established in Palestine."

4. Did McMahon mean (3:10) by mentioning an "Arab state" also Palestine? Or was he referring to everywhere else but Palestine?

5.  Some Arabs joined the war effort (3:19)?  How many? How representative were they? Jews also joined the effort under the British flag.  And which "land" did the Arabs drive out the Turks?  It wasn't "Palestine" for the Jews of the Jewish Legion assisted with that.  

See how simply devious they are.  And there's more.

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Add 1777 the Anniversary List

At a conference I attended this morning, an official of the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, Asher Fredman, a Senior Coordinator for Diaspora Affairs, made a wonderful presentation.

Referring to the upcoming 2017 which will mark 50 years to the Six Day's War as well as the centenary of the Balfour Declaration, he mentioned other events that took place in a "7" year like the First Zionist Congress, 1897, the Peel Commission Partition Plan, 1937, the UN's Partition scheme, 1947 and Sadat's visit to Israel, 1977.

I have involved myself in this Balfour Centenary since 2012 (my letter to Mr. Netanyahu, in Hebrew, is below* and I have in my files a similar letter to Naftali Bennett from November 2, 2014), especially what I saw happening in England with the Balfour Project..

I was impressed with the change I detected from Asher's words in government policy.

However, there was one other date I wanted to suggest to him to be included: 1777.

In that year occurred the Aliyah to Eretz-Yisrael of the Hassidic leaders. Rabbi Menahem Mendel of Vitebsk (1730-1788) and Avraham Kalisk (1741 - 1810) and with them some 300 immigrants. They set themselves down in Tiberias, where Rabbi Menahem Mendel oversaw the building of a Hassidic synagogue. 

They laid the foundations for what would come to be called the Old Yishuv. Etkes has written that 

Scholars are divided on the question of the causes of this migration. Simon Dubnow connected it to the persecution of hasidim by mitnagedim. According to this explanation, the establishment of a hasidic center in the Land of Israel sought to affirm the standing of Hasidism and refute the claims of its opponents. Israel Halpern maintained that the hasidic immigrants aspired to sanctify themselves with the holiness of the Land of Israel. Ben Zion Dinur, on the other hand, saw the migration as bearing messianic significance. An important element in this debate on the reasons for the hasidic migration was the discovery of a contemporary Karaite source. This source, first discussed in an article by David Assaf, links the hasidic migration to rumors that the Messiah son of David, had appeared in the Land of Israel.

My friend, Mor Altshuler has some important research material.

I also suggest Arie Morgenstern's book.

In any case, 1777 should be included.

___________
*

כ"ה תשרי תשע"ג

10 באוקטובר 2012

לכבוד מזכיר הממשלה

עו"ד צבי האוזר

ירושלים

הנדון: ציון 100 שנים להצהרת בלפור

שלום רב,

ביום 7 בנובמבר 2017, בעוד חמש שנים, נציין הצהרתו של הלורד בלפור, שעליה מושתת מעמדו של מדינת ישראל במשפט העמים בחלקו הגדול.

אין צורך להפריז על חשיבותו של האירוע הזה, פרי עמלו של הציונות המדינית של הרצל, מה עוד אלא שכבר היום פועלים כוחות אנטי-ציוניים ואנטי-ישראליים לציין את האירוע – בדרכם שלהם (ראה באתר זה: http://www.balfourproject.org/?page_id=522).

שוחחתי עם השרים בני בגין ולימור לבנת והם הפנו אותי אליך, אם כי שלחתי אל מזכירות הממשלה פקס לפני חודש ועדיין לא קבלתי תגובה.

האם הממשלה החליטה כבר על הקמת מנהלת 100 שנה להצהרת בלפור?

אם לאו, אני ממליץ על הדבר כולל שיתוף פעולה עם גורמים אחרים כמו ההסתדרות הציונות העולמית אשר יוטלו על המנהלת הזאת משימות מהתוויית הדרך לציין את האירוע ועד לפיקוח על עריכת כנסים, הוצאה לאור של פרסומים, ניהול אתרי מדיה חדשה ועוד ועוד. כמובן, אשמח להיות חלק מהמערך הארגוני הזה.

אשמח להתייחסותך,

ישראל מידד

שילה, ד.נ. אפרים 44830

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