The Balfour Declaration

 The Balfour Declaration

A lasting peace for Europe can only be attained

if the Mohammedan question is taken seriously.

On 2 November 1917, Arthur James Balfour wrote to Lord Rothschild conveying His Majesty’s government’s ‘declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations’ and ‘the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people’ without any prejudice to ‘the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine’. British statesmen were ambivalent as to their ultimate intentions, but the letter, the so-called Balfour Declaration turned out to be the proverbial camel of the Arabs leading eventually to the establishment of the Zionist state to the exclusion of its native Palestinian population. Its final borders remain as yet undefined.

In obliging the Zionist lobby in Britain, the then British colonial politicians were also concerned about the ‘Great Islamic Revival now that Turkey ceases to be the power on which the hopes of the Muslim world were placed.’ The word ‘Islamic fundamentalism’ had not then been invented.

Dr. S. R. Sonyel, historian and writer has been reading some of the historical papers released recently.

Most, if not all, the upheavals in the Middle East today, can be laid at the doorstep of British colonial politicians who paraded in the ephemeral political scene of the Great War (1914-18), and who disappeared with a twinkle of the eye, but not the conflagration they irresponsibly caused and left to posterity. The Middle East, the Islamic World, nay, the whole international community, are still suffering from the ravages of the catastrophe they have caused by espousing the ‘cause’ of Zionism at the expense of the human rights of the overwhelming Muslim majority of Palestine lover three million), who have been uprooted and expelled en masse from their homeland, if not exterminated, and condemned to exist in misery, deprivation, and humiliation.

One of the protagonists of British ‘statesmanship’ of the period was Arthur James Balfour, foreign secretary at the time, who has been described by some of those who knew him as a man ‘with a heart of stone’, and with ‘innate cynicism’. Yet, he was firmly convinced that the Jews were ‘the most gifted race produced by mankind since the Greeks: exiled, scattered and persecuted’; and that ‘Christendom owed them an immeasurable debt’. As Lord Vansittart wrote later, Balfour cared for one thing only - Zionism. In fact, on one of his tours to the United States, Balfour was reported to have announced: ‘lam a Zionist’.

For Balfour, as for Lloyd George, the British prime minister who was nicknamed by some as ‘the goat’, and other British politicians such as General Smuts of South Africa, the bible was a living and literal reality; and according to Zionist leader Chain Weizmann, England believed that she had no business in Palestine except as part of a plan for the creation of the ‘Jewish homeland’. Many Jewish leaders also influenced the British politicians through their network of influence and association extending to, and including, the British cabinet secretariat and the ministries of war and foreign affairs.

Yet the British are accused of double-dealing, for they had, through Sir Henry McMahon, their high commissioner in Egypt, come to an agreement with Sherif Hussein of Makkah in 1916 whereby the latter undertook to expel the Ottoman Turks from Arabia in return for British recognition of Arab independence which would include Palestine; although McMahon and the British politicians at the time denied this. Most probably the British negotiators with Sherif Hussein vaguely and verbally did offer Palestine to the Hashemite Arabs in order to lure them to joint forces with the Western powers to fight against the Ottoman Caliphate; but this was only a ruse, and the Arabs should have paid attention to British General Allenby‘s statement, following the entry of the British troops into Jerusalem, that ‘only now have the Crusades ended‘. The British general was, of course, surmising because the neo-Crusaders, then allied to those of Zionism, carried on. Nevertheless, Sherif Hussein was one of the first to congratulate the British on their capture of Jerusalem.

The Balfour Declaration of 2 November 1918 was the upshot of the British policy of ‘divide and rule’ in the Middle East at a time when nationalism and Pan-Islamism were becoming rampant in the area, and Britain realized that her direct colonial rule was doomed. The implantation of a Jewish ‘state’ in the heart of Islam under the guise of a ‘homeland’ seemed to the colonial and imperial powers as the only effective means of dividing the Muslim world and of preventing the revival of the Ottoman Caliphate, or the resurgence of Islam. A 41-page memorandum was drawn up on 25 March 1917, at Jeddah, by the British Army captain, N.N.E. Bray. It was titled: ‘A note on the Mohammedan Question – Its bearing on events in India and Arabia. The future of the Great Islamic Revival now that Turkey ceases to be the power on which the hopes of the Muslim World were placed’. It reveals most glaringly the British intentions towards Islam. Let us peruse some of the most interesting passages in this memorandum.

Captain Bray believed that the Pan-Islamic Movement was spread over the whole Muslim world. ‘We must watch and study it in Persia, Afghanistan, Turkestan, Java, and Arabia as well as within the (British) Empire’, he advised, and went on to state that most adherents of this movement lacked at the time a definite policy; but the chief danger lay in the future, as the movement might become ‘a very powerful weapon for our enemies in the event of another great war’. The author of the memorandum believed that suppressive measures could not eradicate it, as its hold was too great to be ever eliminated. To show hostility to the movement, on the other hand, would be playing into the hands of ‘our opponents’. It would gather fresh momentum in countries outside India as the active and propelling force lay in territories ‘beyond our control’.

Captain Bray was so alarmed by the spread of this movement that he went on to make the following suggestions to the British Government; ‘It is imperative for us to control as many as possible of the Mohammedan peoples, and by a policy of help, and a few needed concessions, to those of them who are our own subjects, prevent the possibility of their seeking support elsewhere’. He believed that thousands of Muslims were working for Islamic independence. The movement was visibly developing — slowly but surely, and its symptoms were: discontent with the existing status, readiness to take offence, religious sensitiveness, decreasing friendliness towards the British, etc.

The author then pointed out that the Pan-Islamic Movement was not incoherent. It had bound together the vast majority of the educated men and an increasing number of the masses; and would do so increasingly. Until recently the Arabs were indifferent to their lot, and the Indians contented under British rule; but a desire for independence had been created in the various individual Muslim countries. Neither repression, as in Morocco, nor ‘leniency’, as in India, could dispel the new spirit of nationalism. Although at the time the movement had no general objective, there were signs that this would come; and an ‘obvious danger’ to the (British) Empire would ensue. Agitation and propaganda were intense in all Muslim countries, as shown by the reports received daily from every quarter, from Kashgar to Morocco, from Delhi to Makkah. ‘A lasting peace for Europe can only be attained if the Mohammedan question is taken seriously in hand’, warned Captain Bray.

While in Syria, Captain Bray had received information that Russia was secretly encouraging Pan-Islamism and was fostering trouble over her borders. Russia had the greater facilities than Britain for influencing Afghanistan, Persia, and Chinese Turkestan, and should be carefully watched, he warned. As for future policy, Bray pointed out that the policy of the Government of India was not of create a powerful Muslim state; but to safeguard India by ‘dividing up’ the movement.

In forwarding this memorandum to General Sir Reginald Wingate, the British high commissioner in Cairo, Lieutenant-Colonel C. E. Wilson, on 29 March 1917 made the following observations:’ . . . . . . . . I agree with Captain Bray’s statement that Pan-Islamization is by no means dead, and I personally believe that issues of first importance to us as an Empire, with our millions of Muslem subjects, depend upon how the Mohammedan question is handled now and in the near future.” But developments towards the Balfour Declaration of a Jewish ‘home’ in Palestine could not be stalled.

Of those involved in these developments the most prominent activist was Chaim Weizmann, who had moved from Manchester to London to work for the ministry of munitions. According to Lloyd George, the Declaration was given to Weizmann as a reward for the important work he had done in producing acetone for the war effort. Of course, Lloyd George failed to mention also the fact that the Allies wished to make use of the Jews in their war effort, and to inflict the Islamic heartland with a festering sore.

The first conference in London which led to the Balfour Declaration took place in February 1917, at which pro-Zionists such as Sir Mark Sykes and A. Samuel were present, together with the leading Zionists and two members of the Rothschild family. The meeting decided against a condominium or the internationalization of Palestine in favour of a British protectorate. In June and July, the Zionist leaders in London drafted, for consideration by the British Cabinet, the text of a letter of support to be issued by the British Government, committing itself to the reconstitution of Palestine as a ‘Jewish state’. Some Jewish leaders, however, thought that this was too ambitious and warned: ‘If we ask for too much we shall get nothing’.

Meanwhile the Zionists were doing their utmost to nip in the bud a pro-Islamic movement urging Britain and her Allies to sign a separate peace treaty with the Ottoman Caliphate, leaving Palestine under Turkish/Muslim administration. We learn from a booklet published in London in August 1917 by the Central Islamic Society, under the title Muslim interest in Palestine, that on 9 June 1917 a lecture was delivered by Marmaduke Pickthall on this subject, at Caxton Hall in London, which was held under the auspices of the Society and was attended by many Muslim representatives. The booklet emphasized that, as there had been a great deal of talk lately of creating a Jewish state in Palestine under the suzerainty of a Christian Power, Muslims had come to the meeting to express their sense of resentment at those proposals.

M. H. lspahani, the President of the Society was in the chair, Sheikh Mushir Hosain Kidwai of India (author of The Sword of Islam) and honorary secretary of the Society, opened the meeting as follows: ‘Mr. Marmaduke Pickthall is a well-known publicist and accomplished author of several books, some of them dealing with the East, including Palestine. He has travelled a good deal and has visited and seen with his own eyes the sacred Places in Palestine. He is the son of the late Reverend Charles Pickthall, Rector of Chillesford, in Suffolk.

‘Why was he entrusted with this lecture? Before I answer that, let me tell you that Islam is universal. Over 13 centuries ago Islam effectually demolished those boundaries of race, country, colour and class which divided man from man. There is no distinction in Islam between an Arab and Turk, a negro and a white man, an Abyssinian’ slave and a Hedjaz Quraish, a denizen of the East and of the West. All the Muslim people form one nation . . . . . . Mr. Pickthall believes in one Universal God; he respects all the prophets: Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad (ﷺ) . . . . his sympathies are not confined to the people of his own race, country or colour. Which other religion except Islam can claim a man with such beliefs and sympathies? . . . . . .

‘The question of Palestine has two aspects: (1) political, and (2) religious. From a political point of view the offensive towards Palestine was one of the greatest blunders of the war: a great blunder than the effort to seize Constantinople (Istanbul) for Russia and to court a serious and dangerous ignorance which seems to prevail in this country as regards Muslim interests in Palestine. People of this country, even responsible Ministers and public men, are ignorant of almost all affairs concerning Islam and Muslims . . but that ignorance very often endangers the interests of the British Empire as it does in the present case.

‘The Gaza offensive of the Allies was called by the British press a holy war, a crusade. The Times called it ‘a new Crusade’, another paper, “the eighth crusade”. One said that it was “the last Crusade” to drive away “the infidels” from the Holy Land. How ignorant they are to call us “infidels” when we do no worship any saints or saviours as the majority of the Christians do. Our places of worship are free from images, idols and statues. We have not adopted the pagan Trinitarian belief, and do not worship a man-god as Christians do.

‘The other day, General Smuts — the same General Smuts who ill-treated the civilized and highly cultured Indians in South Africa, who very recently talked of the “Black peril” and expressed his pious opinion that “black men” have no souls — said with a view to raise religious fanaticism in Russia that one of the objects of the war was to liberate the Christian populations from Muslim rule. Mr. Balfour who, unfortunately, is a philosopher and not a historian, also mentioned about Muslim civilization being foreign to Europe, and therefore deserving of expulsion from that celestial continent. General Smuts is now an imperialist, so he ought to know that in the British Empire itself there are more non-Christians, more Muslims . . . . . .  than Christians, and that British rule-is so much Christian that in India itself thousands of pounds paid by non-Christian tax-payers are spent annually in the upkeep of purely Christian churches and in the high salaries of Christian priests, while not a brass farthing is spent on either Hindu or Muslim places of worship from the taxes which they pay. Christian rule is more alien to Hindus and Muslims than Muslims rule to Christians. Anybody even with the most elementary knowledge of history knows that Muslim rule has been far longer in Europe than Christian rule in India, Tunis, Tripoli, etc. It can be of no service to the British Empire to introduce in this terrible war religious questions in any form or shape under any pretence or excuse . . . . . . . . . . . . Nor can it be a service to the cause of future peace and brotherliness to leave behind unending and bitter religious feuds after the war by replacing Muslim rule of the Holy Land by either Jewish or Christian.

Marmaduke Pickthall began his address by pointing out that Palestine was a Holy Land for three religions — Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Yet in talking of the future destination of that country only two of these religions were mentioned in England – Judaism and Christianity. Yet Muslims had been the rulers of that country – with the exception of the period when the Crusaders had succeeded in occupying it — for some 13 centuries. The native population of the country consisted of Muslims, Jews and Christians, each and all enjoying ‘perfect liberty of conscience’, having, and having always had, their own churches, monasteries, shrines and synagogues. Would that have been case if Palestine had been ruled for 13 hundred years by Christians or Jews? All history ‘goes to prove that it would not’. 

When Palestine was conquered by the Muslims in the 7th century (C.E.), the population, so claimed Pikthall, was all Christian; there were no Jews there. Jews were jealously excluded from the Holy Places. A large Christian population remained after the Muslim conquest, and remained until that day. ‘But how comes it there are native Jews today in Palestine?’ he asked, and replied that, at different periods, Jews had fled for refuge to the Muslim Empire from the persecutions they had endured in Christian Europe. ‘This is all due to Muslim toleration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .’

Marmaduke then continued as follows: ‘I should regard it as a world-disaster if Palestine should be taken from the Muslim government. Must even that sacred ground be exploited by the profiteers? Muslims have preserved Jerusalem as a Holy City, Palestine as a holy country with all the reverence. Would modern Christians and Jews have done the like? No Christian power could have kept order at ' the Holy Places so impartially and calmly as the Muslim Power has done . . . . . . . Among the Christian churches at Jerusalem there is jealousy and even murderous hate, which has become inextricably mixed with European politics. If you want to have a new and terrible storm-centre for the world, hand over Palestine to any Christian Power . . . . . . .

‘The Turks have covered up the shame of Christendom . . . Zionist Jews hate the Christians and Muslims; their supremacy would mean oppression for the other elements of the population. Their avowed intention is to get possession of the Haram-esh-Sherif — including the Dome of the Rock — the so-called Mosque of Omar, and the Mosque El Aksa which is the second Holy Place of Islam — because it was the site of their Temple . . . Under Turkish government full self-government has been allowed to all tribes and communities so long as they behave themselves . . . Christian missionaries are in general the enemies of Islam . . . yet they, more perhaps than any other sort of people, have been generously treated by the Muslim Government . . . if_ Palestine were to be taken from the Muslim Empire, l fancy we should see a striking change in the demeanour (of even Hashemite Arabs who sided with the Allies).

‘Palestine is holier to the Muslims than it is either to the Jews or Christians. All those memories of the old prophets which are sacred either to the Jews or Christians are also holy to the Muslims. But to the Muslims the memories of Islam and Muhammad (ﷺ) are also holy, although they are not holy either to the Jews or the Christians. Muslims believe that the ascension of the Holy Prophet took place from the sacred soil of Jerusalem. They believe that Christ will come again to Palestine to re-guide his mistaken people and permanently establish the glory of Islam.

‘They Holy Qur’an calls Jerusalem Bait-ul-Harem and even Masjid-ul-Haram (the Sacred Mosque). Muslim Arabs and Turks, Indians and Egyptians, all those who have any faith in them, will unitedly claim Palestine to remain always under Muslim rule. So if the Zionistic ambitions of our Jewish brothers must be realized; if they have suffered for the last 2,000 years, as Lord Rothschild has said, with that one ambition – suffered, never, you mind, at the hands of the Muslims but always by the hands of Christians in every country, England, France, Spain and Russia, even during the war — then those ambitions can only be realized by the cooperation and under the suzerainty of Muslims.

‘If we compare the treatment meted out to even British citizens from India in the British colonies and that of Jewish emigrants, even from hostile empires and with Zionistic ambitions in Palestine, we can see how tolerant the Muslim Khalifa has always been to the Jews . . . It will be grossest and very dangerous ingratitude for themselves on the part of the Jews to try to wreck the empire of the Khalifa. Jews can gain much more advantage by allowing Palestine) to remain a safe refuge for themselves.

Even a Zionist state cannot be safe if surrounded by such hostile neighbours who belong to a fighting race, and who profess a virile and vigorous faith  . . .

While Muslims in Britain were thus expressing their resentment at the possibility of transforming Palestine into a Jewish ‘home’, on 19 June 1917, Lord Rothschild and Weizmann went to see Balfour and put to him that the time had come for some kind of public statement from the British Government. Balfour asked for a draft acceptable to the Zionist organization. The document was submitted on 18 July. It mentioned, not a ‘Jewish state‘, but a 'nationa| home’, and proposed that the British government should discuss with the Zionist organization ways and means of achieving this object. The Rothschild draft was submitted to the War Cabinet for the first time in early August 1917, but its discussion was postponed. They then prepared a new memorandum, after seeing Balfour, for the next Cabinet meeting on 4 October. This time the pro-Zionist forces (except Smuts) were present in full force. They included Lloyd George, Balfour and Milner. Edwin Montagu of the India Office made a long speech opposing it. He was supported by Lord Curzon, former Viceroy of India. Balfour announced that the German government was making great efforts to woo the Zionists, who had the backing of the majority of the Jews. The American attitude, he added, was extremely favourable. The Cabinet, however, decided to consult President Wilson of America.

At the next meeting of the War Cabinet on 25 October again no final decision was taken, because Curzon announced that he was about to submit a memorandum on the question. The Zionists and the Foreign Office regarded this as mere obstruction. Curzon argued that Palestine would not do as a ‘national home’ for the Jews. He was all in favour of increased Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe and giving the Jews the same civil and religious rights as the other inhabitants. But this was not what the Zionists wanted. At the next Cabinet meeting on 31 October Curzon gave in.

Leopold Amery, a Jewish politician and the assistant secretary to the War Cabinet, had been commissioned earlier by Balfour to prepare a draft for a declaration which would take into account both the aims of the Zionists and, to a certain extent, the objections of their critics. This accounts for the absence of any reference to a ‘Jewish state’ in the Balfour Declaration. The Zionist leaders themselves had made it known that, the argument that the Jews wanted a state was ‘wholly fallacious’, and that it was not, in fact, part of the Zionist programme.

The Amery draft was circulated to various Jewish personalities, and the chief rabbi gave an assurance that the proposed declaration would be approved by the overwhelming majority of the Jews. At the decisive Cabinet meeting of 31 October, Balfour left open the question whether the ‘national home' would take the form of a British or an American protectorate, or whether there would be some other arrangement. At the end of the debate he was authorized to write to Lord Rothschild the following letter, with the request to bring it to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.

The news of the Declaration was published in the British press on 8 November 1917, appearing side by side with reports from Petrograd about the Bolshevik Revolution. The newspapers took it for granted that this event would pave the way for a ‘Jewish state’: the Daily Express carried a headline: ‘A state for the Jews’: The Times and Morning Post chose ‘Palestine for the Jews:  The Observer wrote that there could not have been, at that juncture, a stroke ‘of statesmanship more just and more wise’. The Jewish community was jubilant, and the enthusiasm of the American and Russian Jewry was expressed in many resolutions. The French and the Italians, however, did not react favourably to the Balfour Declaration, and although America supported it, the Bolshevik government in Petrograd showed little enthusiasm to it. Both Lenin and Trotsky declared later that it was an imperialist intrigue, part of an overall network of anti-Soviet schemes, arranged to strengthen British imperialist interests against the world revolution. Needless to say, the Muslim World was taken aback.

This vague Declaration had no legal basis at all; it was simply political tinkering, and could be interpreted in different ways. It has been argued that there never was any intention to establish a ‘Jewish state’, and after 1918, influential circles within the British’ government gradually dissociated themselves from the original concept. But Forbes Adams, the Foreign Office expert on Palestine, claimed that the intention of the British Government was to create a state in Palestine, which was expected to take many years to achieve, and to turn it into a ‘Jewish state’. Lloyd George, however, wrote that the War Cabinet did not intend to set up a ‘Jewish state‘ immediately, but that it was hoped that Palestine would become a ‘Jewish common-wealth‘ after the Jews had responded to the opportunity given to them and become a majority of the inhabitants.

Finally, it should be pointed out that, in 1917 the war was not going very well for the Allies, who needed all the help they could get. Sir Ronald Graham, head of the Eastern Department of the Foreign Office, wrote, in a memorandum dated 24 October 1917, that the Zionists might be thrown into the arms of the Germans unless an assurance of sympathy was given to them: ‘The moment this assurance is granted, the Zionist Jews are prepared to start an active pro-Allied propaganda throughout the world‘, he declared. Moreover, British politicians were convinced that the aims of Zionism were not incompatible with British interests in the Near East, otherwise it is doubtful whether they would have hatched this ominous Declaration.

(Courtesy — impact International 13-26 November 1987).