Institute for Historical Review
Behind the Balfour Declaration
Britain's Great War Pledge To Lord Rothschild
By Robert John
Acknowledgements
To Benjamin H. Freedman, who committed himself to finding and telling the
facts about Zionism and Communism, and encouraged others to do the same.
The son of one of the founders of the American Jewish Committee, which for
many years was anti-Zionist, Ben Freedman founded the League for Peace with
Justice in Palestine in 1946. He gave me copies of materials on the Balfour
Declaration which I might never have found on my own and encouraged my
own research. (He died in April 1984.)
The Institute for Historical Review is providing means for the better
understanding of the events of our time.
Attempts to review historical records impartially often reveal that blame,
culpability, or dishonor are not to be attached wholly to one side in the
conflicts of the last hundred years. To seek to untangle fact from propaganda is
a worthy study, for it increases understanding of how we got where we are and
it should help people resist exploitation by powerful and destructive interests in
the present and future, by exposing their working in the past.
May I recommend to the Nobel Prize Committee that when the influence of this
organization's historical review and search for truth has prevailed the societies
of its contributors — say about 5 years or less from now — that they consider
the IHRfor the Nobel Peace Prize.
Regrettably, some of the company in that award would be hard to bear!
The Balfour Declaration may be the most extraordinary document produced by any
Government in world history. It took the form of a letter from the Government of His
Britannic Majesty King George the Fifth, the Government of the largest empire the world has
even known, on which — once upon a time — the sun never set; a letter to an international
financier of the banking house of Rothschild who had been made a peer of the realm.
Arthur Koestler wrote that in the letter "one nation solemnly promised to a second nation the
country of a third." More than that, the country was still part of the Empire of a fourth,
namely Turkey.
It read:
Foreign Office, November 2nd, 19 17
Dear Lord Rothschild,
I have much pleasure in conveying to you on behalf of His Majesty's
Government the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist
aspirations, which has been submitted to and approved by the Cabinet:
"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a
national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to
facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing
shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing
non- Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by
Jews in any other country."
I should be grateful if you would bring this Declaration to the knowledge of the
Zionist Federation.
Yours sincerely,
Arthur James Balfour. [11
It was decided by Lord Allenby that the "Declaration" should not then be published in
Palestine where his forces were still south of the Gaza-Beersheba line. This was not done
until after the establishment of the Civil Administration in 1920.
Then why was the "Declaration" made a year before the end of what was called The Great
War?
"The people" were told at the time that it was given as a return for a debt of gratitude which
they were supposed to owe to the Zionist leader (and first President of Israel), Chaim
Weizman, a Russian-born immigrant to Britain from Germany who was said to have invented
a process of fermentation of horse chestnuts into scarce acetone for production of high
explosives by the Ministry of Munitions.
This horse chestnut propaganda production was not dislodged from the mass mind by the
short bursts of another story which was used officially between the World Wars.
So let us dig into the records and bury the chestnuts forever.
To know where to explore we must stand back from the event and look over some parts of
the relevant historical background. The terrain is extensive and the mud deep, so I shall try to
proceed by pointing out markers.
Herzl on the Jewish Problem
Support for a "national home" for the Jews in Palestine from the government of the greatest
empire in the world was in part a fulfillment of the efforts and scheming of Theodore Herzl
(1860-1904), descendant of Sephardim (on his rich father's side) who had published Der
Judenstaat (The Jewish State) in Vienna in 1896. It outlined the factors which he believed had
created a universal Jewish problem, and offered a program to regulate it through the exodus
of unhappy and unwanted Jews to an autonomous territory of their own in a national-socialist
setting.
Herzl offered a focus for a Zionist movement founded in Odessa in 1881, which spread
rapidly through the Jewish communities of Russia, and small branches which had sprung up in
Germany, England and elsewhere. Though "Zion" referred to a geographical location, it
functioned as a Utopian conception in the myths of traditionalists, modernists and Zionists
alike. It was the reverse of everything rejected in the actual Jewish situation in the
"Dispersion," whether oppression or assimilation.
In his diary Herzl describes submitting his draft proposals to the Rothschild Family Council,
noting: "I bring to the Rothschilds and the big Jews their historical mission. I shall welcome
all men of goodwill — we must be united — and crush all those of bad." [2J
He read his manuscript "Addressed to the Rothschilds" to a friend, Meyer-Cohn, who said,
Up till now I have believed that we are not a nation — but more than a nation. I
believed that we have the historic mission of being the exponents of universalism
among the nations and therefore were more than a people identified with a
specific land.
Herzl replied:
Nothing prevents us from being and remaining the exponents of a united
humanity, when we have a country of our own. To fulfill this mission we do not
have to remain literally planted among the nations who hate and despite us. If, in
our present circumstances, we wanted to bring about the unity of mankind
independent of national boundaries, we would have to combat the ideal of
patriotism. The latter, however, will prove stronger than we for innumerable
years to come." [2al
In this era, there were a number of Christians and Messianic groups who looked for a Jewish
"return." One of these was the Protestant chaplain at the British Embassy in Vienna, who had
published a book in 1882: The Restoration of the Jews to Palestine According to the
Prophets. Through him, Herzl obtained an audience of the Grand Duke of Baden, and as they
waited for their appointment to go to the castle, Herzl said to Chaplain Hechler, "When I go
to Jerusalem I shall take you with me."
The Duke gave Herzl's proposal his consideration, and agreed to Herzl's request that he might
refer to it in his meetings outside of Baden. He then used this to open his way to higher levels
of power.
Through intermediaries, he endeavoured to ingratiate himself with the Sultan of Turkey by
activities designed to reduce the agitation by l^migri'^ Armenian committees in London
and Brussels for Turkish reforms and cessation of oppression [AJ and started a press
campaign to calm public opinion in London on the Armenian question. But when offered
money for Palestine, the Sultan replied that his people had won their Empire with blood, and
owned it. "The Jews may spend their millions. When my Empire is divided, perhaps they will
get Palestine for nothing. But only our corpse can be divided. I will never consent to
vivisection. " [2bl
Herzl met the Papal Nuncio in Vienna and promised the exclusion of Jerusalem, Bethlehem
and Nazareth from the Jewish state. He started a Zionist newspaper, Die Welt, and was
delighted to hear from the United States that a group of rabbis headed by Dr. Gustave
Gottheil favored a Zionist movement. All this, and more, in a few months.
It was Herzl who created the first Zionist Congress at Basel, Switzerland, 29-31 August 1897,
[BJ There were 197 "delegates"; some were orthodox, some nationalist, liberal, atheist,
culturalist, anarchist, socialist and some capitalist.
"We want to lay the foundation stone of the house which is to shelter the Jewish nation," and
"Zionism seeks to obtain for the Jewish people a publicly recognized, legally secured
homeland in Palestine." declared Herzl. And his anti-assimilationist dictum that "Zionism is a
return to the Jewish fold even before it is a return to the Jewish land," was an expression of
his own experience which was extended into the official platform of Zionisn as the aim of
"strengthening the Jewish national sentiment and national consciousness." [31
Another leading figure who addressed the Congress was Max Nordau, a Hungarian Jewish
physician and author, who delivered a polemic against assimilated Jews. "For the first time
the Jewish problem was presented forcefully before a European forum," wrote Weizmann.
But the Russian Jews thought Herzl was patronizing them as Askenazim. They found his
"western dignity did not sit well with our Russian- Jewish realism; and without wanting to, we
could not help irritating him." [41
As a result of the Congress, the "Basic Protocol," keystone of the world Zionist movement,
was adopted as follows:
Zionism strives to create for the Jewish people a home in Palestine secured by
public law. The Congress contemplates the following means to the attainment of
this end:
1. The promotion on suitable lines of the colonization of Palestine by Jewish
agricultural and industrial workers.
2. The organization and binding together of the whole of Jewry by means of
appropriate institutions, local and international, in accordance with the laws of
each country.
3 . The strengthening and fostering of Jewish national sentiment and
consciousness.
4. Preparatory steps towards obtaining Government consent where necessary to
the attainment of the aim of Zionism.[51
The British Chovevei-Zion Association declined an invitation to be represented at the
Congress, and the Executive Committee of the Association of Rabbis in Germany protested
that:
1. The efforts of so-called Zionists to found a Jewish national state in Palestine
contradict the messianic promise of Judaism as contained in the Holy Writ and in
later religious sources.
2. Judaism obligates its adherents to serve with all devotion the Fatherland to
which they belong, and to further its national interests with all their heart and
with all their strength.
3. However, those noble aims directed toward the colonization of Palestine by
Jewish peasants and farmers are not in contradiction to these obligations,
because they have no relation whatsoever to the founding of a national state. [61
In conversation with a delegate at the First Congress, Litman Rosenthal, Herzl said,
It may be that Turkey will refuse or be unable to understand us. This will not
discourage us. We will seek other means to accomplish our end. The Orient
question is now the question of the day. Sooner or later it will bring about a
conflict among the nations. A European war is imminent. . The great European
War must come. With my watch in hand do I await this terrible moment. After
the great European war is ended the Peace Conference will assemble. We must
be ready for that time. We will assuredly be called to this great conference of the
nations and we must prove to them the urgent importance of a Zionist solution to
the Jewish Question. We must prove to them that the problem of the Orient and
Palestine is one with the problem of the Jews — both must be solved together.
We must prove to them that the Jewish problem is a world problem and that a
world problem must be solved by the world. And the solution must be the return
of Palestine to the Jewish people. [American Jewish News, 7 March 1919]
A few months later, in a message to a Jewish conference in London, Herzl wrote "the first
moment I entered the Movement my eyes were directed towards England because I saw that
by reason of the general situation of things there it was the Archimedean point where the
lever could be applied." Herzl showed his desire for some foothold in England, and also
perhaps his respect for London as the world's financial center, by causing the Jewish Colonial
Trust, which was to be the main financial instrument of his Movement, to be incorporated in
1899 as an English company.
Herzl was indefatigable. He offered the Sultan of Turkey help in re-organizing his financial
affairs in return for assistance in Jewish settlement in Palestine. [71 To the Kaiser, who visited
Palestine in 1888 and again in 1898, [CI he promised support for furthering German interests
in the Near East; a similar offer was made to King Edward VII of England; and he personally
promised the Pope to respect the holy places of Christendom in return for Vatican
support. [Dl But only from the Czar did he receive, through the Minister of the Interior, a
pledge of "moral and material assistance with respect to the measures taken by the movement
which would lead to a diminution of the Jewish population in Russia." [81
He reported his work to the Sixth Zionist Congress at Basle on 23 August 1903, but stated,
"Zion is not and can never be. It is merely an expedient for colonization purposes, but, be it
well understood, an expedient founded on a national and political basis." [9J
When pressed for Jewish colonization in Palestine, the Turkish Sublime Porte offered a
charter for any other Turkish territory [with acceptance by the settlers of Ottoman
citizenship] which Herzl refused. [1 1] The British Establishment, aware of Herzl's activities
through his appearance before the Royal Commission on Alien Immigration, [EJ and
powerful press organs such as the Daily Chronicle and Pall Mall Gazette which were
demanding a conference of the Powers to consider the Zionist program, [12] somewhat
characteristically, had shown a willingness to negotiate about a Jewish colony in the Egyptian
territory of El-Arish on the Turco-Egyptian frontier in the Sinai Peninsula. But the Egyptian
Government objected to making Nile water available for irrigation; the Turkish Government,
through its Commissioner in Cairo, objected; and the British Agent in Cairo, Lord Cromer,
finally advised the scheme's rejection. [13]
Meanwhile, returning from a visit to British East Africa in the Spring of 1903, Prime Minister
Joseph Chamberlain put to Herzl the idea of a Jewish settlement in what was soon to become
the Colony of Kenya, but through a misunderstanding Herzl believed that Uganda was
intended, and it was referred to as the "Uganda scheme." Of the part of the conversation on
the El-'Arish proposal, Herzl wrote in his diary that he had told Chamberlain that eventually
we shall gain our aims "not from the goodwill but from the jealously of the Powers." [141
With the failure of the El-'Arish proposal, Herzl authorized the preparation of a draft scheme
for settlement in East Africa. This was prepared by the legal firm of Lloyd George, Roberts
and Company, on the instructions of Herzl's go-between with the British Government,
Leopold Greenberg. [151
Herzl urged acceptance of the "Uganda scheme," favoring it as a temporary refuge, but he
was opposed from all sides, and died suddenly of heart failure on 3 July 1904. Herzl's death
rid the Zionists of an "alien," and he was replaced by David Wolffsohn (the Litvak [F1). [161
The "Uganda proposal" split the Zionist movement. Some who favored it formed the Jewish
Territorial Organization, under the leadership of Israel Zangwill (1864-1926). For these
territorialists, the renunciation of "Zion" was not generally felt as an ideological sacrifice;
instead they contended that not mystical claims to "historic attachment" but present
conditions should determine the location of a Jewish national homeland. [171
In Turkey, the "Young Turk" (Committee of Union and Progress) revolution of 1908 was
ostensibly a popular movement opposed to foreign influence. However, Jews and crypto-Jews
known as Dunmeh had played a leading part in the Revolution. [191
The Zionists opened a branch of the Anglo-Palestine Bank in the Turkish capital, and the
bank became the headquarters of their work in the Ottoman Empire. Victor Jacobson [GJ was
brought from Beirut, "ostensibly to represent the Anglo-Palestine Company, but really to
make Zionist propaganda among the Turkish Jews." [201 His contacts included both political
parties, discussions with Arab members of Parliament from Syria and Palestine, and a general
approach to young Ottoman intellectuals through a newspaper issued by the Zionist
office. [2 11 In Turkey, as in Germany, "Their own native Jews were resentful of the attempt to
segregate them as Jews and were opposed to the intrusion of Jewish nationalism in their
domestic affairs." Though several periodicals in French "were subvened" by the Zionist-front
office under Dr. Victor Jacobson, [221 (the first Zionist who aspired to be not a Zionist leader
but a "career" diplomat,) and although he built up good political connections through social
contacts, "always avoiding the sharpness of a direct issue, and waiting in patient oriental
fashion for the insidious seed of propaganda to fructify," [231 yet some of those engaged in
the work, notably Vladimir (Zev) Jabotinsky (1880-1940), came to despair of success so long
as the Ottoman Empire controlled Palestine. They henceforth pinned their hopes on its
collapse. [241
At the Tenth Zionist Congress in 1911, David Wolffsohn, who had succeeded Herzl, said in
his presidential address that what the Zionists wanted was not a Jewish state but a homeland,
[261 while Max Nordau denounced the "infamous traducers," who alleged that "the Zionists
... wanted to worm their way into Turkey in order to seize Palestine . It is our duty to
convince (the Turks) that ... they possess in the whole world no more generous and
self-sacrificing friends than the Zionists." [HJ [271
The mild sympathy which the Young Turks had shown for Zionism was replaced by suspicion
as growing national unrest threatened the Ottoman Empire, especially in the Balkans. Zionist
policy then shifted to the Arabs, so that they might think of Zionism as a possible
make -weight against the Turks. But Zionists soon observed that their reception by Arab
leaders grew warmer as the Arabs were disappointed in their hopes of gaining concessions
from the Turks, but cooled swiftly when these hopes revived. The more than 60 Arab
parliamentary delegates in Constantinople and the newly active Arabic press kept up "a
drumfire of complaints" against Jewish immigration, land purchase and settlement in
Palestine.[281
"After many years of striving, the conviction was forced upon us that we stood before a blank
wall, which it was impossible for us to surmount by ordinary political means," said Weizmann
of the last pre-war Zionist Congress. But the strength of the national will forged for itself two
main roads towards its goal — the gradual extension and strengthening of our Yishuv (Hebrew:
literally, "settlement," a collective name for the Jewish settlers) in Palestine and the spreading
of the Zionist idea throughout the length and breadth of Jewry. [291
The Turks were doing all they could to keep Jews out of Palestine. But this barrier was
covertly surmounted, partly due to the venality of Turkish officials, [301 (as delicately put in
a Zionist report — "it was always possible to get round the individual official with a little
artifice"); [321 and partly to the diligence of the Russian consuls in Palestine in protecting
Russian Jews and saving them from expulsion. [331
But if Zionism were to succeed in its ambitions, Ottoman rule of Palestine must end. Arab
independence could be prevented by the intervention of England and France, Germany or
Russia. The Eastern Jews hated Czarist Russia. With the entente cordiale in existence, it was
to be Germany or England, with the odds slightly in Britain's favor in potential support of the
Zionist aim in Palestine, as well as in military power. [II On the other hand, Zionism was
attracting some German and Austrian Jews with important financial interests and had to take
into account strong Jewish anti-Zionist opinion in England.
But before Zionism had finally reckoned it could gain no special consideration in Palestine
from Turkey, the correspondent of The Times was able to report in a message published 14
April 1911, of the Zionist organ Jeune Turc's [JJ "violent hostility to England" and "its
germanophile enthusiasm," and to the propaganda carried on among Turkish Jews by
"German Zionist agents." When the policy line altered, this impression in England had to be
erased. [341 The concern of the majority of rich English Jews was not allayed by articles in the
Jewish Chronicle, edited by Leopold Greenberg, pointing out that in the Basle program there
was "not a word of any autonomous Jewish state," [351 and in Die Welt, the official organ of
the Movement, the article by Nahum Sokolow, then the General Secretary of the Zionist
Organization, in which he protested that there was no truth in the allegation that Zionism
aimed at the establishment of an independent Jewish State. [3 61 Even at the 1 1th Congress in
1913, Otto Warburg, speaking as chairman of the Zionist Executive, gave assurances of
loyalty to Turkey, adding that in colonizing Palestine and developing its resources, Zionists
would be making a valuable contribution to the progress of the Turkish Empire. [371
[A1 A letter entered in Herzl's diary on 15 May 1896 states that the head of the Armenian
movement in London is Avetis Nazarhek, "and he directs the paper Huntchak (The
Bell). He will be spoken to."
[B1 On either side of the main doorway of the hall hung white banners with two blue stripes,
and over the doorway was placed a six-pointed "Shield of David." It was the invention
of David Wolffsohn, who employed the colors of the traditional Jewish prayer shawl.
Fifty years later, the combined emblems became the flag of the Zionist state. The
"Shield of David" is of Assyrian origin: previously a decorative motif or magical
emblem. It appeared on the heraldic flag of the Jews in Prague in 1527.
[CI On the latter trip he was accompanied by his Empress. Their yacht, the Hohenzollern,
put in at Haifa, and they were escorted to Jerusalem by 2,000 Turkish soldiers.
[D1 Pope Pius X told him that the Church could not support the return of "infidel Jews" to
the Holy Land.[101
[EJ In 1880, there were about 60,000 Jews in England. Between 1881 and 1905, there was
an immigration of some 100,000 Eastern Jews. Though cut by the Aliens Bill of the
Balfour Government, which became law in the summer of 1905, immigration continued
so that by 1914 there was a Jewish population in England of some 300,000. A leader of
the fight against the Aliens Bill and against tightening up naturalization regulations in
1903-1904 was Winston S. Churchill. [181
[F] The Eastern Jews referred to each other as "Litvaks" (Lithuania), "Galizianers"
(Galicia), "Polaks," "Hungarians," and geographical regions of their ancestral origin,
e.g., "Pinskers"; never by the term Jew.
[GJ (1869 — 1935). Born in the Crimea, and nurtured in the atmosphere of assimilation and
revolutionary agitation in Russia, Jacobson had organized clubs and written about
Zionism in Russian Jewish newspapers. After the First World War, the era of the direct
and indirect bribe and the contact man gave way to one in which the interests of
nationalities, represented by diplomat-attorneys, had to be met, wrote Lipsky: "In this
new world into which Jacobson was thrown, he laboured with the delicacy and
concentration of an artist . . working persistently and with vision to build up an interest
in the cause. He had to win sympathy as well as conviction." [25J
[HJ In the Zionist Congress of 191 1, (22 years before Hitler came to power, and three years
before World War I), Nordau said, "How dare the smooth talkers, the clever official
blabbers, open their mouths and boast of progress ... Here they hold jubilant peace
conferences in which they talk against war... But the same righteous governments, who
are so nobly, industriously active to establish the eternal peace, are preparing, by their
own confession, complete annihilation for six million people, and there is nobody,
except the doomed themselves, to raise his voice in protest although this is a worse
crime than any war ..." [3JJ
[I] Approximate annual expenditure for military purposes by the European Powers in the
first years of the century were: France — £38,400,000; Germany — £38,000,000; Italy —
£15,000,000; Russia - £43,000,000; United States - £38,300,000; Great Britain -
£69,000,000 at pre- 19 14 values of sterling.
|71 Its business manager was a German Jew, Sam Hochberg. Among invited contributors
was the immensely wealthy Russian Jew Alexander Helphand who, as "Parvus," was
later to suggest to the German left-wing parties that Lenin and his associates be sent to
Russia in 1917 to demoralize still further the beaten Russian armies.
The Great War
Until mid- 19 14, the surface of European diplomatic relations was placid, reflecting
successfully negotiated settlements of colonial and other questions. But certain British
journalists were charged by their contemporaries "that they deliberately set out to poison
Anglo-German relations and to create by their scaremongering such a climate of public
opinion that war between the two Great Powers became inevitable." (The Scaremongers: The
Advocacy of War and Rearmament 1896-1914, A. J. A. Morris, Routledge & Kegan Paul,
1984)
Were they paid or pure? Every anti-German diatribe in British newspapers added to German
government concern as to whether it was part of a policy instigated or condoned by Downing
Street. Further, there were groups in every major European country which could see only in
war the possible means to further their interests or to thwart the ambitions of their rivals. This
is why the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir-apparent to the Austro-Hungarian
throne, on 28 June in Sarajevo, soon set Europe crackling with fire, a fire which naturally
spread through the lines of communications to colonial territories as far away as China.
On 28 July, Austria declared war on Serbia. Germany sent an ultimatum to Russia threatening
hostilities if orders for total mobilization of the Russian army and navy were not
countermanded.
A telegram dated 29 July 1914 from the Czar Nicholas to the Emperor Wilhelm, proposing
that the Austro-Serbian dispute should be referred to the Hague Tribunal, remained
unanswered. At the same time Germany sent a message to France asking if she would remain
neutral; but France, which had absorbed issue after issue of Russian railroad bonds in
addition to other problems, was unequivocal in supporting Russia. Amid mounting tension
and frontier violations, Germany declared war on Russia and France.
The French Chief-of-Staff, General Joseph Joffre, was prepared to march into Belgium if the
Germans first violated its neutrality [381 which had been guaranteed by Britain, France,
Prussia, Austria and Russia. German troops crossed the Belgian frontier (on 4 August at 8
a.m.) and the United Kingdom declared war on Germany.
First Pledge
Lord Kitchener, who had left London at 1 1:30 on the morning of 3 August to return to Egypt
after leave, was stopped at Dover and put in charge of the War Office. [3 91 At the first
meeting of the War Council he warned his colleagues of a long struggle which would be won
not at sea but on land, for which Britain would have to raise an army of millions of men and
maintain them in the field for several years. [401 When the defense of Egypt was discussed at
the meeting, Winston Churchill suggested that the ideal method of defending Egypt was to
attack the Gallipoli Peninsula which, if successful, would give Britain control of the
Dardenelles. But this operation was very difficult, and required a large force. He preferred
the alternative of a feint at Gallipoli, and a landing at Haifa or some other point on the Syrian
coast.
In Turkey, the Sultan had taken the title of Khalif-al-lslam, or supreme religious leader of
Moslems everywhere, and emissaries were dispatched to Arab chiefs with instructions that in
the event of Turkey being involved in the European hostilities, they were to declare a jihad,
or Moslem holy war. A psychological and physical force which Kitchener of Khartoum, the
avenger of General Gordon's death, understood very well.
Kitchener planned to draw the sting of the jihad, which could affect British-Indian forces and
rule in the East, by promoting an Arab revolt to be led by Hussein, who had been allowed by
the Turks to assume his hereditary dignity as Sherif of Mecca and titular ruler of the Hejaz.
Kitchener cabled on 13 October 1914 to his son, Abdullah, in Mecca, saying that if the Arab
nation assisted England in this war, England would guarantee that no internal intervention
took place in Arabia, and would give the Arabs every assistance against external aggression.
A series of letters passed between Sherif Hussein and the British Government through Sir
Henry McMahon, High Commissioner for Egypt, designed to secure Arab support for the
British in the Great War. One dated 24 October 1915 committed HMG to the inclusion of
Palestine within the boundaries of Arab independence after the war, but excluded the area
now known as Lebanon. This is clearly recognized in a secret "Memorandum on British
Commitments to King Hussein" prepared for the inner group at the Peace Conference in
1919. (See Appendix) I found a copy in 1964 among the papers of the late Professor Wm.
Westermann, who had been adviser on Turkish affairs to the American Delegation to the
Peace Conference.
The Second Pledge
As the major ally, France's claim to preference in parts of Syria could not be ignored. The
British Foreign Minister, Sir Edward Grey, told the French Ambassador in London, Mr. Paul
Gambon, on 21 October 1915, of the exchanges of correspondence with Sherif Hussein, and
suggested that the two governments arrive at an understanding with their Russian ally on their
future interests in the Ottoman Empire.
M. Picot was appointed French representative with Sir Mark Sykes, now Secretary of the
British War Cabinet, to define the interests of their countries and to go to Russia to include
that country's views in their agreement.
In the subsequent secret discussions with Foreign Secretary Sazonov, Russia was accorded
the occupation of Constantinople, both shores of the Bosporus and some parts of "Turkish"
Armenia. [A] France claimed Lebanon and Syria eastwards to Mosul. Palestine did in fact
have inhabitants and shrines of the Greek and Russian Orthodox and Armenian churches, and
Russia at first claimed a right to the area as their protector. This was countered by
Sykes-Picot and the claim was withdrawn to the extent that Russia, in consultation with the
other Allies, would only participate in deciding a form of international administration for
Palestine.
The Sykes-Picot Agreement was incompatible with the pledges made to the Arabs. When the
Turks gave Hussein details of the Agreement after the Russian revolution, he confined his
action to a formal repudiation.
Like the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence, the Tripartite Agreement made no mention of
concessions to Zionism in the future disposition of Palestine, or even mention of the word
"Jew." However it is now known that before the departure of Sykes [B] for Petrograd on 27
February 1916 for discussions with Sazonov, he was approached with a plan by Herbert
Samuel, who had a seat in the Cabinet as President of the Local Government Board and was
strongly sympathetic to Herzl's Zionism. [4 11
The plan put forward by Samuel was in the form of a memorandum which Sykes thought
prudent to commit to memory and destroy, Commenting on it, Sykes wrote to Samuel
suggesting that if Belgium should assume the administration of Palestine it might be more
acceptable to France as an alternative to the international administration which she wanted
and the Zionists did not. [421 Of boundaries marked on a map attached to the memorandum
he wrote, "By excluding Hebron and the East of the Jordan there is less to discuss with the
Moslems, as the Mosque of Omar then becomes the only matter of vital importance to discuss
with them and further does away with any contact with the bedouins, who never cross the
river except on business. I imagine that the principal object of Zionism is the realization of the
ideal of an existing center of nationality rather than boundaries or extent of territory. The
moment I return I will let you know how things stand at Pd." [431
However, in conversations both with Sykes and the French ambassador, Sazonov was careful
not to commit himself as to the extent of the Russian interest in Palestine, but made it clear
that Russia would have to insist that not only the holy places, but all towns and localities in
which there were religious establishments belonging to the Orthodox Church, should be
placed under international administration, with a guarantee for free access to the
Mediterranean. [441
Czarist Russia would not agree to a Zionist formula for Palestine; but its days were
numbered.
A) This new offer to Russia of a direct outlet into the Mediterranean is a measure of the great
importance attached by Britain and France to continued and wholehearted Russian
participation in the war. British policy from the end of the Napoleonic wars had been directed
against Russia's efforts to extend its conquests to the Golden Horn and the Mediterranean
(threatening Egypt and the way to India). For this reason, Britain and France had formed an
alliance and fought the Crimean War (1854-56), which ended in the Black Sea being declared
neutral; no warships could enter it nor could arsenals be built on its shores.
But Russian concern for the capture of Constantinople was more than economic and
strategic. It was not unusual for priests to declare that the Russian people had a sacred duty
to drive out the "infidel" Turk and raise the orthodox cross on the dome of Santa Sophia.
In 1877, the Russian armies again moved towards Constantinople with the excuse of
avenging cruelties practiced on Christians. Again England frustrated these designs and the
aggression ended with the Congress of Berlin, and British occupation of Cyprus.
B) Sir Mark Sykes, Secretary of the British War Cabinet, sent to Russia to negotiate the
Tripartite (Sykes-Picot) Agreement for the Partition of the Ottoman Empire. M. Picot was the
French representative in the negotiations. Neither Hussein nor Sir Henry McMahon were
made aware of these secret discussions. Among other things, the agreement called for parts of
Palestine to be placed under "an international administration."
The Third Pledge
In 1914, the central office of the Zionist Organization and the seat of its directorate, the
Zionist Executive, were in Berlin. It already had adherents in most Eastern Jewish
communities, including all the countries at war, though its main strength was in Russia and
Austria-Hungary. [45J Some important institutions, namely, the Jewish Colonial Trust, the
Anglo-Palestine Company and the Jewish National Fund, were incorporated in England. Of
the Executive, two members (Otto Warburg [A] and Arthur Hantke) were German citizens,
three (Yechiel Tschlenow, Nahum Sokolow and Victor Jacobson) were Russians and one
(Shmarya Levin) had recently exchanged his Russian for Austro-Hungarian nationality. The
25 members of the General Council included 12 from Germany and Austria-Hungary, 7 from
Russia... Chaim Weizmann and Leopold Kessler) from England, and one each from Belgium,
France, Holland and Rumania. [461
Some prominent German Zionists associated themselves with a newly founded organization
known as the Komitee fur den Osten, whose aims were: "To place at the disposal of the
German Government the special knowledge of the founders and their relations with the Jews
in Eastern Europe and in America, so as to contribute to the overthrow of Czarist Russia and
to secure the national autonomy of the Jews." [471
Influential Zionists outside the Central Powers were disturbed by the activities of the K.f.d.O.
and anxious for the Zionist movement not to be compromised. Weizmann's advice was that
the central office be moved from Berlin and that the conduct of Zionist affairs during the war
should he entrusted to a provisional executive committee for general Zionist affairs in the
United States.
At a conference in New York on 30 August 1914, this committee was set up under the
chairmanship of Louis D. Brandeis, with the British-born Dr. Richard Gottheil and Jacob de
Haas, Rabbi Stephen Wise and Felix Frankfurter, among his principal lieutenants. For
Shmarya Levin, the representative of the Zionist Executive in the United States, and Dr.
Judah Magnes, to whom the alliance of England and France with Russia seemed "unholy,"
Russian czarism was the enemy against which their force should be pitted. [481 But on 1
October 1914 Gottheil, first President of the Zionist Organization of America, wrote from the
Department of Semitic Languages, Columbia University, to Brandeis in Boston enclosing a
memorandum on what the organization planned to seek from the belligerents, with respect to
the Russian Jews:
We have got to be prepared to work under the Government of any one of the
Powers ... shall be glad to have any suggestion from you in regard to this
memorandum, and shall be glad to know if it meets with your approval. I
recognize that I ought not to have put it out without first consulting you; but the
exigencies of the situation demanded immediate action. We ought to be fully
prepared to take advantage of any occasion that offers itself. [491
In a speech on 9 November, four days after Britain's declaration of war on Turkey, Prime
Minister Asquith said that the traditional eastern policy had been abandoned and the
dismemberment of the Turkish Empire had become a war aim. "It is the Ottoman
Government," he declared, "and not we who have rung the death knell of Ottoman dominion
not only in Europe but in Asia." [501 The statement followed a discussion of the subject at a
Cabinet meeting earlier that day, at which we know, from Herbert Samuel's memoirs, that
Lloyd George, who had been retained as legal counsel by the Zionists some years before, [511
"referred to the ultimate destiny of Palestine." In a talk with Samuel after the meeting, Lloyd
George assured him that "he was very keen to see a Jewish state established in Palestine."
On the same day, Samuel developed the Zionist position more fully in a conversation with the
Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey. He spoke of Zionist aspirations for the establishment in
Palestine of a Jewish state, and of the importance of its geographical position to the British
Empire. Such a state, he said, "could not be large enough to defend itself." and it would
therefore be essential that it should be by constitution, neutral. Grey asked whether Syria as a
whole must necessarily go with Palestine, and Samuel replied that this was not only
unnecessary but inadvisable, since it would bring in a large and unassimilable Arab
population. "It would," he said be a great advantage if the remainder of Syria were annexed
by France, as it would be far better for the state to have a European Power as a neighbor than
the Turk. " [521
In January 1915 Samuel produced a Zionist memorandum on Palestine after discussions with
Weizmann and Lloyd George. It contained arguments in favor of combining British
annexation of Palestine with British support for Zionist aspirations, and ended with objections
to any other solution. [531 Samuel circulated it to his colleagues in the Cabinet. Lloyd George
was already a Zionist "partisan"; Lord Haldane, to whom Weizmann had had access, wrote
expressing a friendly interest; [541 though privately expressing Zionist sympathies, the
Marquess of Crewe presumably did not express any views in the Cabinet on the
memorandum; [551 Zionism had a strong sentimental attraction for Grey [561 but his
colleagues, including his cousin Edwin Montagu, did not give him much encouragement.
Prime Minister Asquith wrote: "I confess that I am not attracted by the proposed addition to
our responsibilities, but it is a curious illustration of Dissy's favorite maxim that race is
everything to find this almost lyrical outburst proceeding from the well-ordered and
methodical brain of H.S." [571
After further conversations with Lloyd George and Grey. [581 Samuel circulated a revised
text to the Cabinet in the middle of March 1915.
It is not known if the memorandum was formally considered by the Cabinet, but Asquith
wrote in his diary on 13 March 1915 of Samuel's " dithyramb ic memorandum" of which Lloyd
George was "the only other partisan. " [591 Certainly, at this time, Zionist claims and
aspirations were secondary to British policy towards Russia and the Arabs.
Britain, France and Germany attached considerable importance to the attitudes of Jewry
towards them because money and credit were needed for the war. The international banking
houses of Lazard Freres, Eugene Mayer, J. & W. Seligman, Speyer Brothers and M.M.
Warburg, were all conducting major operations in the United States, as were the Rothschilds
through the New York banking house of Kuhn, Loeb & Co.[B] Apart from their goodwill, the
votes of America's Jewish community of 3,000,000 were important to the issue of that
country's intervention or non-intervention in the war, and the provision of military supplies.
The great majority represented the one-third of the Jews of Eastern Europe, including Russia,
who had left their homelands and come to America between 1880 and 1914. Many detested
Czarist Russia and wished to see it destroyed. Of these Jews, not more than 12,000 were
enrolled members of the Zionist Organization. [601
The goodwill of Jewry, and especially America's Jews, was assessed by both sides in the war
as being very important. The once-poor Eastern European Jews had achieved a dominant
position in New York's garment industry, and had become a significant political force. In
1914 they sent a Russian-born socialist to the Congress of the United States. They produced
dozens of Yiddish periodicals; they patronized numerous Yiddish theatres and music halls;
their sons and daughters were filling the metropolitan colleges and universities. [6 11
From the beginning of the war, the German Ambassador in Washington. Count Bernstorff,
was provided, by the Komitee fuer den Osten, with an adviser on Jewish Affairs (Isaac
Straus); and when the head of the Zionist Agency in Constantinople appealed, in the winter
of 1914, to the German Embassy to do what it could to relieve the pressure on the Jews in
Palestine, it was reinforced by a similar appeal to Berlin from Bernstorff. [621 In November
1914, therefore, the German Embassy in Constantinople received instructions to recommend
that the Turks sanction the re-opening of the Anglo-Palestine Company's Bank — a key
Zionist institution. In December the Embassy made representations which prevented a
projected mass deportation of Jews of Russian nationality. [631 In February 1915 German
influence helped to save a number of Jews in Palestine from imprisonment or expulsion, and
"a dozen or twenty times" the Germans intervened with the Turks at the request of the Zionist
office in Turkey, "thus saving and protecting the Yishuv." [651 The German representations
reinforced those of the American Ambassador in Turkey (Henry Morgenthau).[C] [661
Moreover, both the German consulates in Palestine and the head of the German military
mission there frequently exerted their influence on behalf of the Jews. [671
German respect for Jewish goodwill enabled the Constantinople Zionist Agency from
December 1914 to use the German diplomatic courier service and telegraphic code for
communicating with Berlin and Palestine. [681 On 5 June 1915 Victor Jacobson was received
at the German Foreign Office by the Under-Secretary of State (von Zimmerman) and regular
contact commenced between the Berlin Zionist Executive (Warburg, Hantke and Jacobson)
and the German Foreign Office. [691
Zionist propagandists in Germany elaborated and publicized the idea that Turkey could
become a German satellite and its Empire in Asia made wide open to German enterprise;
support for "a revival of Jewish life in Palestine" would form a bastion of German influence
in that part of the world. [701 This was followed by solicitation of the German Foreign Office
to notify the German consuls in Palestine of the German Government's friendly interest in
Zionism. Such a course was favored by von Neurath [D] when asked by Berlin for his views
in October, and in November of 1915, the text for such a document was agreed upon and
circulated after the approval of the German Chancellor (Bethmann-Hollweg). It was
cautiously and vaguely worded so as not to upset Turkish susceptibilities, stating to the
Palestine consuls that the German Government looked favorably on "Jewish activities
designed to promote the economic and cultural progress of the Jews in Turkey, and also on
the immigration and settlement of Jews from other countries." [711
The Zionists felt that an important advance toward a firm German commitment to their aims
had been made, but when the Berlin Zionist Executive pressed for a public assurance of
sympathy and support, the Government told them to wait until the end of the war, when a
victorious Germany would demonstrate its goodwill. [721
When Zionist leaders in Germany met Jemal Pasha, by arrangement with the Foreign Office,
during his visit to Berlin in the summer of 1917, they were told that the existing Jewish
population would be treated fairly but that no further Jewish immigrants would he allowed.
Jews could settle anywhere else but not in Palestine. The Turkish Government, Jemal Pasha
declared, wanted no new nationality problems, nor was it prepared to antagonize the
Palestinian Arabs, "who formed the majority of the population and were to a man opposed to
Zionism." [731
A few weeks after the interview, the Berlin Zionists' pressure was further weakened by the
uncovering by Turkish Intelligence of a Zionist spy ring working for General Allenby's
Intelligence section under an Aaron Aaronssohn. "It is no wonder that the Germans, tempted
as they may have been by its advantages, shrank from committing themselves to a pro-Zionist
declaration." [741
It was fortunate for Zionism that the American Jews as a whole showed no enthusiasm for the
Allied cause, wrote Stein, political secretary of the Zionist Organization from 1920 to 1929,
"If they had all along been reliable friends, there would have been no need to pay them any
special attention." [751
In 1914 the French Government had sponsored a visit to the United States by Professor
Sylvain Levy and the Grand Rabbi of France with the object of influencing Jewish opinion in
their favor, but without success. A year later, it tried to reply to disturbing reports from its
embassy in Washington about the sympathies of American Jews [761 by sending a Jew of
Hungarian origin (Professor Victor Basch) to the United States in November 1915. [771
Ostensibly he represented the Ministry of Public Instruction, but his real mission was to
influence American Jews through contact with their leaders. [781 Though armed with a
message to American Jewry from Prime Minister Briand, he encountered an insuperable
obstacle — the Russian alliance. "For Russia there is universal hatred and distrust ... We are
reproached with one thing only, the persecution of the Russian Jews, which we tolerate — a
toleration which makes us accomplices ... It is certain that any measures in favor of Jewish
emancipation would be equivalent to a great battle lost by Germany." [791 Basch had to
report to French President Poincare the failure of his mission. [801
At the same time that Basch had been dispatched to the United States, the French
Government approved the setting up of a "Comite de propagande Francais aupres des Juifs
neutres," and Jacques Bigart, the Secretary of the Alliance Israelite, accepted a secretaryship
of the Comite. Bigart suggested to Lucien Wolf, of the Jewish Conjoint Foreign Committee in
London, that a similar committee be set up there. Wolf consulted the Foreign Office and was
invited by Lord Robert Cecil to provide a full statement of his views. [8 11
In December 1915 Wolf submitted a memorandum in which he analyzed the characteristics
of the Jewish population of the United States and reached the conclusion that "the situation,
though unsatisfactory, is far from unpromising." Though disclaiming Zionism, be wrote that
"In America, the Zionist organizations have lately captured Jewish opinion." If a statement of
sympathy with their aspirations were made, "I am confident they would sweep the whole of
American Jewry into enthusiastic allegiance to their cause." [821
Early in 1916 a further memorandum was submitted to the British Foreign Office as a formal
communication from the Jewish Conjoint Foreign Committee. This stated that "the London
(Conjoint) and Paris Committees formed to influence Jewish opinion in neutral countries in a
sense favorable to the Allies" had agreed to make representations to their respective
Governments. First, the Russian Government should be urged to ease the position of their
Jews by immediate concessions for national-cultural autonomy secondly, "in view of the
great organized strength of the Zionists in the United States," (in fact out of the three million
Jews in the U.S. less than 12,000 had enrolled as Zionists in 1913), [831 the Allied Powers
should give assurances to the Jews of facilities in Palestine for immigration and colonization,
liberal local self-government for Jewish colonists, the establishment of a Jewish university,
and for the recognition of Hebrew as one of the vernaculars of the land — in the event of their
victory. [841
On 9 March 1916 the Zionists were informed by the Foreign Office that "your suggested
formula is receiving (Sir Edward Grey's) careful and sympathetic attention, but it is necessary
for H.M.G. to consult their Allies on the subject." [851 A confidential memorandum was
accordingly addressed to the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs in Petrograd, to ascertain his
views, though its paternity, seeing that Asquith was still Prime Minister, "remains to be
discovered." [861 No direct reply was received, but in a note addressed to the British and
French ambassadors four days later, Sazonov obliquely assented, subject to guarantees for the
Orthodox Church and its establishments, to raise no objection to the settlement of Jewish
colonists in Palestine. [871
Nothing came of these proposals. On 4 July the Foreign Office informed the Conjoint
Committee that an official announcement of support was inopportune. [881 They must be
considered alongside the Sykes-Picot Agreement being negotiated at this time, and the virtual
completion of the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence by 10 March 1916, with the hope that
an Arab revolt and other measures would bring victory near.
But 1916 was a disastrous year for the Allies. "In the story of the war" wrote Lloyd George,
the end of 1916 found the fortunes of the Allies at their lowest ebb. In the
offensives on the western front we had lost three men for every two of the
Germans we had put out of action. Over 300,000 British troops were being
immobilized for lack of initiative or equipment or both by the Turks in Egypt and
Mesopotamia, and for the same reason nearly 400,000 Allied soldiers were for all
purposes interned in the malarial plains around Salonika. [891
The voluntary system of enlistment was abolished, and a mass conscript army of continental
pattern was adopted, something which had never before occurred in British history. [E] [901
German submarine activity in the Atlantic was formidable; nearly 1 1/2 million tons of
merchant shipping had been sunk in 1916 alone. As for paying for the war, the Allies at first
had used the huge American debts in Europe to pay for war supplies, but by 1916 the
resources of J.P. Morgan and Company, the Allies' financial and purchasing agents in the
United States, were said to be nearly exhausted by increased Allied demands for American
credit. [9 11 There was rebellion in Ireland. Lord Robert Cecil stated to the British Cabinet:
"France is within measurable distance of exhaustion. The political outlook of Italy is
menacing. Her finance is tottering. In Russia, there is great discouragement. She has long
been on the verge of revolution. Even her man-power seems coming near its limits. " [941
Secretary of State Kitchener was gone — drowned when the cruiser Hampshire sank on 5
June 1916 off the Orkneys when he was on his way to Archangel and Petrograd to nip the
revolution in the bud. He had a better knowledge of the Middle East than anyone else in the
Cabinet. The circumstances suggest espionage and treachery. Walter Page, the U.S.
Ambassador in London, entered in his diary: "There was a hope and feeling that he (Lord
Kitchener) might not come back... as I make out."
There was a stalemate on all fronts. In Britain, France and Germany, hardly a family
numbered all its sons among the living. But the British public — and the French, and the
German — were not allowed to know the numbers of the dead and wounded. By restricting
war correspondents, the American people were not allowed to know the truth either.
The figures that are known are a recital of horrors. [E]
In these circumstances, a European tradition of negotiated peace in scores of wars, might
have led to peace at the end of 1916 or early 1917.
Into this gloomy winter of 1916 walked a new figure. He was James Malcolm, [F] an Oxford
educated Armenian [G] who, at the beginning of 1916, with the sanction of the British and
Russian Governments, had been appointed by the Armenian Patriarch a member of the
Armenian National Delegation to take charge of Armenian interests during and after the war.
In this official capacity, and as adviser to the British Government on Eastern affairs, [951 he
had frequent contacts with the Cabinet Office, the Foreign Office, the War Office and the
French and other Allied embassies in London, and made visits to Paris for consultations with
his colleagues and leading French officials. He was passionately devoted to an Allied victory
which he hoped would guarantee the national freedom of the Armenians then under Turkish
and Russian rule.
Sir Mark Sykes, with whom he was on terms of family friendship, told him that the Cabinet
was looking anxiously for United States intervention in the war on the side of the Allies, but
when asked what progress was being made in that direction, Sykes shook his head glumly,
"Precious little," he replied.
James Malcolm now suggested to Mark Sykes that the reason why previous overtures to
American Jewry to support the Allies had received no attention was because the approach
had been made to the wrong people. It was to the Zionist Jews that the British and French
Governments should address their parleys.
"You are going the wrong way about it," said Mr. Malcolm. "You can win the sympathy of
certain politically-minded Jews everywhere, and especially in the United States, in one way
only, and that is, by offering to try and secure Palestine for them." [961
What really weighed most heavily now with Sykes were the terms of the secret Sykes-Picot
Agreement. He told Malcolm that to offer to secure Palestine for the Jews was impossible.
"Malcolm insisted that there was no other way and urged a Cabinet discussion. A day or two
later, Sykes told him that the matter had been mentioned to Lord Milner who had asked for
further information. Malcolm pointed out the influence of Judge Brandeis of the American
Supreme Court, and his strong Zionist sympathies." [971
In the United States, the President's adviser, Louis D. Brandeis, a leading advocate of
Zionism, had been inducted as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court on 5 June 1916. That
Wilson was vulnerable was evident, in that as early as 191 1, he had made known his
profound interest in the Zionist idea and in Jewry. [981
Malcolm described Wilson as being "attached to Brandeis by ties of peculiar hardness," a
cryptic reference to the story that Wilson had been blackmailed for $40,000 for some hot
love letters he had written to his neighbor's wife when he was President of Princeton. He did
not have the money, and the go-between, Samuel Untermeyer, of the law firm of
Guggenheim, Untermeyer & Marshall, said he would provide it if Wilson would appoint to
the next vacancy on the Supreme Court a nominee selected by Mr. Untermeyer. The money
was paid, the letters returned, and Brandeis had been the nominee.
Wilson had written to the Senate, where opposition to the nominee was strong: "I have
known him. I have tested him by seeking his advice upon some of the most difficult and
perplexing public questions about which it was necessary for me to form a judgment When
Brandeis had been approved by the Senate, Wilson wrote to Henry Morgenthau: "I never
signed any commission with such satisfaction." "Relief might have been a more appropriate
word.
The fact that endorsement of Wilson's nominee by the Senate Judiciary Committee had only
been made "after hearings of unprecedented length" [991 was not important. Brandeis had the
President's ear; he was "formally concerned with the Department of State." [1001 This was
the significant development, said Malcolm, which compelled a new approach to the Zionists
by offering them the key to Palestine.
The British Ambassador to the United States (Sir Cecil Spring-Rice) had written from
Washington in January 1914 that "a deputation came down from New York and in two days
'fixed' the two Houses so that the President had to renounce the idea of making a new treaty
with Russia." [1011 In November 1914 he had written to the British Foreign Secretary of the
German Jewish bankers who were extending credits to the German Government and were
getting hold of the principal New York papers" thereby "bringing them over as much as they
dare to the German side and "toiling in a solid phalanx to compass our destruction." [1021
This anti-Russian sentiment was part of a deep concern for the well-being of Russian and
Polish Jews. Brandeis wrote to his brother from Washington on 8 December 1914: "... You
cannot possibly conceive the horrible sufferings of the Jews in Poland and adjacent countries.
These changes of control from German to Russian and Polish anti-semitism are bringing
miseries as great as the Jews ever suffered in all their exiles." [H] [1031
In a speech to the Russian Duma on 9 February (27 January Gregorian) 1915, Foreign
Minister Sazonov denied the calumnious stories which, he said, were circulated by Germany,
of accounts of alleged pogroms against the Jews and of wholesale murders of Jews by the
Russian armies. "If the Jewish Population suffered in the war zone, that circumstance
unfortunately was inevitably associated with war, and the same conditions applied in equal
measure to all people living within the region of military activity." He added to the rebuttal
with accounts of hardship in areas of German military action in Poland, Belgium and
Serbia. [1041
It is noteworthy that the chairman of the non-Zionist American Jewish Committee responded
to an appeal by the Brandeis group that all American Jews should organize to emphasize
Zionist aims in Palestine before the Great Powers in any negotiations during or at the end of
the war, by dissociating his community from the suggestion that Jews of other nationalities
were to be accorded special status. He said that "the very thought of the mass of the Jews of
America having a voice in the matter of deciding the welfare of the Jews in the world made
him shrink in horror." [1071
The new approach to the Zionist movement by Mark Sykes with James Malcolm as
preliminary interlocutor took the form of a series of meetings at Chaim Weizmann's London
house, with the knowledge and approval of the Secretary of the War Cabinet, Sir Maurice
Hankey.
A Programme for a New Administration of Palestine in Accordance with the Aspirations of
the Zionist Movement was issued by the English Political Committee of the Zionist
Organization in October 1916, and submitted to the British Foreign Office as a basis for
discussion in order to give an official character to the informal house-talks. It included the
following:
(1) The Jewish Chartered Company is to have power to exercise the right of
pre-emption over Crown and other lands and to acquire for its own use all or any
concessions which may at any time be granted by the suzerain government or
governments.
(2) The present population, being too small, too poor and too little trained to
make rapid progress, requires the introduction of a new and progressive element
in the population. (But the rights of minority nationalities were to be protected).
Other Points were, (3) recognition of separate Jewish nationality in Palestine; participation of
the Palestine Jewish population in local self-government; (5) Jewish autonomy in purely
Jewish affairs; (6) official recognition and legalization of existing Jewish institutions for
colonization in Palestine. [1081
This Programme does not appear to have reached Cabinet level at the time it was issued,
probably because of Asquith's known lack of sympathy, but as recorded by Samuel Landman,
the Zionist Organization was given official British facilities for its international
correspondence. [1091
Lloyd George, an earnest and powerful demagogue, was now prepared to oust Asquith, his
chief, by a coup de main. With the death of Kitchener in the summer of 1916, he had passed
from Munitions to the War Office and he saw the top of the parliamentary tree within his
grasp. In this maneuver he was powerfully aided by the newspaper proprietor Northcliffe, [I]
who turned all his publications from The Times downwards to depreciate Asquith, and by the
newspaper-owing M.P., Max Aitken (later Lord Beaverbrook).
With public sympathy well prepared, Lloyd George demanded virtual control of war policy.
It was intended that Asquith should refuse. He did. Lloyd George resigned. Asquith also
resigned to facilitate the reconstruction of the Government. The King then sent for the
Conservative leader, Bonar Law, who, as prearranged, advised him to offer the premiership
to Lloyd George. [1101
Asquith and Grey were out; Lloyd George and Balfour were in. With Lloyd George as Prime
Minister from December 1916, Zionist relations with the British Government developed fast.
Lloyd George had been legal counsel for the Zionists, and while Minister of Munitions, had
had assistance from the Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann; the new Foreign Minister, Arthur
Balfour, was already known for his Zionist sympathies.
The Zionists were undermining the wall between them and their Palestine objective which
they had found impossible "to surmount by ordinary political means" prior to the war. [1111
Herzl's suggestion that they would get Palestine "not from the goodwill but from the jealousy
of the Powers," [1121 was being made to come true.
The Zionists moved resolutely to exploit the new situation now that the Prime Minister and
Foreign Secretary were their firm supporters.
Landman, in his Secret History of the Balfour Declaration, wrote:
Through General McDonogh, Director of Military Operations, who was won
over by Fitzmaurice (formerly Dragoman of the British Embassy in
Constantinople and a friend of James Malcolm), Dr. Weizmann was able, about
this time, to secure from the Government the services of half a dozen younger
Zionists for active work on behalf of Zionism. At the time, conscription was in
force, and only those who were engaged on work of national importance could
be released from active service at the Front. I remember Dr. Weizmann writing a
letter to General McDonogh and invoking his assistance in obtaining the
exemption from active service of Leon Simon, (who later rose to high rank in the
Civil Service as Sir Leon Simon, C.B.), Harry Sacher, (on the editorial staff of
the Manchester Guardian), Simon Marks, [J] Yamson Tolkowsky and myself. At
Dr. Weizmann's request I was transferred from the War Office (M.I. 9), where I
was then working, to the Ministry of Propaganda, which was under Lord
Northcliffe, and later to the Zionist office, where I commenced work about
December 1916. Simon Marks actually arrived at the Office in khaki, and
immediately set about the task of organizing the office which, as will be easily
understood, had to maintain constant communications with Zionists in most
countries.
From that time onwards for several years, Zionism was considered an ally of the
British Government, and every help and assistance was forthcoming from each
government department. Passport or travel difficulties did not exist when a man
was recommended by our office. For instance, a certificate signed by me was
accepted by the Home Office at that time as evidence that an Ottoman Jew was
to be treated as a friendly alien and not as an enemy, which was the case with
the Turkish subjects.
A. Jacob Schiff, German-born senior partner in Kuhn, Loeb & Co. and "the most
influential figure of his day in American Jewish life," wrote in The Menorah Journal of
April 1915: "It is well known that I am a German sympathizer ... England has been
contaminated by her alliance with Russia ... am quite convinced that in Germany
anti-Semitism is a thing of the past. [641 The Jewish Encyclopedia for 1906 states that
"Schiffs firm subscribed for and floated the large Japanese war loan in 1904-05" (for
the Russo-Japanese war), "in recognition of which the Mikado conferred on Schiff the
second order of the Sacred Treasure of Japan."
Partners with Schiff were Felix M. Warburg and his brother Paul who had come to
New York in 1902 from Hamburg, and organized the Federal Reserve System.
B. An award for Morgenthau's heavy financial support for Wilson's presidential campaign.
C. Later, Foreign Minister (1932-38) and Protector of Bohemia (1939-43).
D. Russian nationals resident in the United Kingdom (nearly all of them Jews), not having
become British subjects, some 25,000 of military age, still escaped military service. [921
This prompted Jabotinsky and Weizmann to urge the formation of a special brigade for
Russian Jews, but the idea not favorably received by the Government, and the Zionists
joined non-Zionists in an effort to persuade Russian Jews of military age to volunteer as
individuals for service in the British army. The response was negligible, and in July
1917 the Military Service (Conventions with Allies) Act was given Royal assent. Men
of military age were invited to serve in the British army or risk deportation to Russia.
However, the Russian revolution prevented its unhindered application. [931
E . Half a million Frenchmen were lost in the first four months of war, 1 million lost by the
end of 1915, and 5 million by 1918. Who can imagine that the Allies lost 600,000 men
in one battle, the Somme, and the British more officers in the first few months than all
wars of the previous hundred years put together?
At Stalingrad, in the Second World War, the Wehrmacht had 230,000 men in the field.
The German losses at Verdun alone were 325,000 killed or wounded.
By this time a soldier in one of the better divisions could count on a maximum of three
months' service without being killed or wounded, and the life expectancy for an officer
at the front was down to five months in an ordinary regiment and six weeks in a crack
one.
F. See his Origins of the Balfour Declaration: Dr. Weizmann's Contribution .
G. Born in Persia, where his family had settled before Elizabethan days. He was sent to
school in England in 1881, being placed in the care of a friend and agent of his family,
Sir Albert (Abdullah) Sassoon. Early in 1915, he founded the Russia Society in London
among the British public as a means of improving relations between the two countries.
Unlike the Zionists, he had no animus towards Czarist Russia.
H. A reference to the 1914 invasion of Austria and East Prussia by the Russians with such
vigor that many people believed that the "Russian steamroller" would soon reach
Berlin and end the war. Only the diversion of whole army divisions from the Western
to the Eastern Front under the command of General von Hindenburg saved Berlin, and
in turn saved Paris.
There was a direct effort by certain groups to support anti-Imperial activities in Russia
from the United States, |T051|T061 but Brandeis was apparently not implicated.
I. Northcliffe was small-minded enough to have Lloyd George called to the telephone, in
front of friends, to demonstrate the politician's need of the Press.
J. Associated with Israel M. Sieff, another of Weizmann's inner circle, in the business
which later became Marks & Spencer, Ltd. Sieff was appointed an economic
consultant to the U.S. Administration (OP A) in March 1924. As subsequent supporters,
with Lord Melchett, of "Political and Economic Planning" (PEP), they exercised
considerable influence on British inter-war policy.
The Declaration, 1917
The informal committee of Zionists and Mark Sykes as representative of the British
Government, met on 7 February 1917 at the house of Moses Gaster, [A] the Chief Rabbi of
the Sephardic (Spanish and Portuguese) congregations in England. Gaster opened the meeting
with a statement that stressed Zionist support for British strategic interests in Palestine which
were to be an integral part of any agreement between them. As these interests might be
considered paramount to British statesmen, support for Zionist aims there, Caster said, was
fully justified. Zionism was irrevocably opposed to any internationalization proposals, even
an Anglo-French condominium. [1 131
Herbert Samuel followed with an expression of the hope that Jews in Palestine would receive
full national status, which would be shared by Jews in the Diaspora. The question of conflict
of nationality was not mentioned and a succeeding speaker, Harry Sacher, suggested that the
sharing should not involve the political implications of citizenship. [1141 Weizmann spoke of
the necessity for unrestricted immigration. It is clear that the content of each speech was
thoroughly prepared before the meeting.
Sykes outlined the obstacles: the inevitable Russian objections, the opposition of the Arabs,
and strongly pressed French claims to all Syria, including Palestine. [1151 James de Rothschild
and Nahum Sokolow, the international Zionist leader, also spoke.
I. The meeting ended with a summary of Zionist objectives:
II. International recognition of Jewish right to Palestine;
III. Juridical nationhood for the Jewish community in Palestine:
IV. The creation of a Jewish chartered company in Palestine with rights to acquire land:
V. Union and one administration for Palestine; and
VI. Extra-territorial status for the holy places. [1171
The first three points are Zionist, the last two were designed to placate England and Russia,
respectively [1181 and probably Italy and the Vatican. Sokolow was chosen to act as Zionist
representative, to negotiate with Sir Mark Sykes.
The Zionists were, of course, coordinating their activities internationally. On the same day as
the meeting in London, Rabbi Stephen Wise in the United States wrote to Brandeis: "I sent
the memorandum to Colonel House covering our question, and he writes: 'I hope the dream
you have may soon become a reality." [118a1
The reports reaching England of impending dissolution of the Russian state practically
removed the need for Russian endorsement of Zionist aims, but made French and Italian
acceptance even more urgent. This at any rate was the belief of Sykes, Balfour, Lloyd George
and Winston Churchill, who, as claimed in their subsequent statements, were convinced that
proclaimed Allied support for Zionist aims would especially influence the United States.
Events in Russia made the cooperation of Jewish groups with the Allies much easier. At a
mass meeting in March 1917 to celebrate the revolution which had then taken place, Rabbi
Stephen Wise, who had succeeded Brandeis as chairman of the American Provisional Zionist
Committee after Brandeis's appointment to the Supreme Court, said: "I believe that of all the
achievements of my people, none has been nobler than the part the sons and daughters of
Israel have taken in the great movement which has culminated in free Russia." [1191
Negotiations for a series of loans totalling $190,000,000 by the United States to the
Provisional Government in Russia of Alexander Kerensky were begun on the advice of the
U.S. ambassador to Russia, David R. Francis, who noted in his telegram to Secretary of State
Lansing, "financial aid now from America would be a master-stroke. Confidential.
Immeasurably important to the Jews that revolution succeed... " [1201
On 22 March 1917 Jacob H. Schiff of Kuhn, Loch & Co., wrote to Mortimer Schiff, "We
should be somewhat careful not to appear as overzealous but you might cable Cassel because
of recent action of Germany (the declaration of unlimited U-boat warfare) and developments
in Russia we shall no longer abstain from Allied Governments financing when opportunity
offers."
He also sent a congratulatory cable to the Minister of Foreign Affairs in the first Provisional
Government, referring to the previous government as "the merciless persecutors of my
co-religionists."
In the same month, Leiber Davidovich Bronstein, alias Leon Trotsky, a Russian-born U.S.
immigrant, had left the Bronx, New York, for Russia, with a contingent of followers, while
V.I. Ulyanov (Lenin) and a party of about thirty were moving across Germany from
Switzerland, through Scandinavia to Russia. Some evidence exists that Schiff and other
sponsors like Helphand financed these revolutionaries.
In March 1917, President Wilson denounced as "a little group of willful men," the
non-interventionists who filibustered an Administration-sponsored bill that would have
empowered Wilson to wage an undeclared naval war against Germany. The opposition to
Wilson was led by Senators La Follette and Norris.
On 5 April, the day before the United States Congress adopted a resolution of war, Schiff had
been informed by Baron Gunzburg of the actual signing of the decrees removing all
restrictions on the Jews in Russia.
At a special session of Congress on 2 April 1917, President Wilson referred to American
merchant ships taking supplies to the Allies which had been sunk during the previous month
by German submarines (operating a counter-blockade; the British and French fleets having
blockaded the Central Powers from the beginning of the war); and then told Congress that
"wonderful and heartening things have been happening within the last few weeks in Russia."
He asked for a declaration of war with a mission:
for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in
their own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a
universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring
peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free.
To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are
and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day has
come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the
principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace that she has treasured.
God helping her, she can do no other, (emphasis supplied)
That night crowds filled the streets, marching, shouting, singing Dixie" or "The Star Spangled
Banner." Wilson turned to his secretary, Tumulty: "Think what that means, the applause. My
message tonight was a message of death, How strange to applaud that!"
So, within six months of Malcolm's specific suggestion to Sykes, the United States of
America, guided by Woodrow Wilson, was on the side of the Allies in the Great War.
Was Wilson guided by Brandeis away from neutrality — to war?
In London, the War Cabinet led by Lloyd George lost no time committing British forces first
to the capture of Jerusalem, and then to the total expulsion of the Turks from Palestine. The
attack on Egypt, launched on 26 March 1917, attempting to take Gaza, ended in failure. By
the end of April a second attack on Gaza had been driven back and it had become clear that
there was no prospect of a quick success on this Front.
From Cairo, where he had gone hoping to follow the Army into Jerusalem with Weizmann,
Sykes telegraphed to the Foreign Office that, if the Egyptian Expeditionary Force was not
reinforced then it would be necessary "to drop all Zionist projects ... Zionists in London and
U.S.A. should be warned of this through M. Sokolow... " [120a1
Three weeks later, Sykes was told that reinforcements were coming from Salonika. The War
Cabinet also decided to replace the Force's commander with General Allenby.
Sykes was the official negotiator for the whole project of assisting the Zionists. He acted
immediately after the meeting at Gaster's house by asking his friend M. Picot to meet Nahum
Sokolow at the French Embassy in London in an attempt to induce the French to give way on
the question of British suzerainty in Palestine. [1211 James Malcolm was then asked to go
alone to Paris to arrange an interview for Sokolow directly with the French Foreign Minister.
Sokolow had been previously unsuccessful in obtaining the support of French Jewry for a
meeting with the Minister; since the richest and most influential Jews in the United States and
England, with the notable exception of the Rothschilds, who could have arranged such a
meeting, were opposed to the political implications of Zionism. In Paris, the powerful
Alliance Israelite Universelle had made every effort to dissuade him from his mission. [1221
Not that the Zionists had no supporters in France other than Edmond de Rothschild, [B] but
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had no reason to entangle itself with fhem. [1231 Now James
Malcolm opened the door directly to them as he had done in London.
Sykes joined Malcolm and Sokolow in Paris. Sykes and Malcolm, apart from the
consideration of Zionism and future American support for the war, were concerned with the
possibility of an Arab-Jewish-Armenian entente which, through amity between Islamic,
Jewish and Christian peoples, would bring peace, stability and a bright new future for the
inhabitants of this area where Europe, Asia Minor and Africa meet. Sokolow went along for
the diplomatic ride, but in a letter to Weizmann (20 April 1917) he wrote: "I regard the idea
as quite fantastic. It is difficult to reach an understanding with the Arabs, but we will have to
try. There are no conflicts between Jews and Armenians because there are no common
interests whatever." [C] [1241
Several conversations were held with Picot, including one on 9 April when other officials
included Jules Cambon, the Secretary-General of the Foreign Ministry, and the Minister's
Chef de Cabinet, Exactly what assurances were given to Sokolow is uncertain, but he wrote
to Weizmann "that they accept in principle the recognition of Jewish nationality in terms of a
national home, local autonomy, etc." [1251 And to Brandeis and Tschlenow, he telegraphed
through French official channels: "... Have full confidence Allied victory will realise our
Palestine Zionist aspirations." [1261
Sokolow set off for Rome and the Vatican. "There, thanks to the introductions of Fitzmaurice
on the one hand and the help of Baron Sidney Sonnino [D] on the other," a Papal audience
and interviews with the leading Foreign Office officials were quickly arranged. [1271
When Sokolow returned to Paris, he requested and received a letter from the Foreign
Minister dated 4 June 1917, supporting the Zionist cause in general terms. He hastily wrote
two telegrams which he gave to M. Picot for dispatch by official diplomatic channels. One
was addressed to Louis D. Brandeis in the United States. It read: "Now you can move. We
have the formal assurance of the French Government." [E] [1281
"After many years, ' wrote M. Picot, "I am still moved by the thanks he poured out to me as
he gave me the two telegrams ... do not say that it was the cause of the great upsurge of
enthusiasm which occurred in the United States, but I say that Judge Brandeis, to whom this
telegram was addressed, was certainly one of the elements determining the decision of
President Wilson." [1291
But Wilson had declared war one month before!
It is natural that M. Picot should want to believe that he had played a significant part in
bringing America into the war and therefore helping his country's victory. The evidence
certainly supports his having a part in helping a Zionist victory.
Their objective was in sight, but had still to be taken and held.
Although the United States was now a belligerent, no declaration of support had been made
for the Zionist program for Palestine, either by Britain or the United States, and some of the
richest and most powerful Jews in both countries were opposed to it.
The exception among these Jewish merchant princes was, of course, the House of Rothschild.
From London on 25 April 1917, James de Rothschild cabled to Brandeis that Balfour was
coming to the United States, and urged American Jewry to support "a Jewish Palestine under
British Protection,,, as well as to press their government to do so. He advised Brandeis to
meet Balfour. [1341 The meeting took place at a White House luncheon, "You are one of the
Americans I wanted to meet," said the British Foreign Secretary. [1351 Brandeis cabled Louis
de Rothschild: "Have had a satisfactory talk with Mr. Balfour, also with Our President. This
is not for Publication. " [1361
On the other hand, a letter dated 17 May 1917 appeared in The Times (London) signed by the
President of the Jewish Board of Deputies and the President of the Anglo-Jewish Association
(Alexander and Montefiore, both men of wealth and eminence) stating their approval of
Jewish settlement in Palestine as a source of inspiration for all Jews, but adding that they
could not favor the Zionist's political scheme. Jews, they believed, were a religious
community and they opposed the creation of "a secular Jewish nationality recruited on some
loose and obscure principle of race and ethnological peculiarity." They particularly took
exception to Zionist Pressure for a Jewish chartered company invested with political and
economic privileges in which Jews alone would participate, Since this was incompatible with
the desires of world Jewry for equal rights wherever they lived. [1371
A controversy then ensued in the British press, in Jewish associations and in the corridors of
government, between the Zionist and non-Zionist Jews. In this, Weizmann really had less
weight, but he mobilized the more forceful team. The Chief Rabbi dissociated himself from
the non-Zionist statement and charged that the Alexander-Montefiore letter did not represent
the views of their organizations. [1381 Lord Rothschild wrote: "We Zionists cannot see how
the establishment of an autonomous Jewish State under the aegis of one of the Allied Powers
could be subversive to the loyalty of Jews to countries of which they were citizens. In the
letter you have published, the question is also raised of a chartered company." He continued:
"We Zionists have always felt that if Palestine is to be colonized by the Jews, some
machinery must be set up to receive the immigrants, settle them on the land and develop the
land, and to be generally a directing agency. I can only again emphasize that we Zionists have
no wish for privileges at the expense of other nationalities, but only desire to be allowed to
work out our destinies side by side with other nationalities in an autonomous state under the
suzerainty of one of the Allied Powers." [1391 This letter stressed the colonialist aspect of
Zionism, but detracted from the strong statist declaration of Weizmann. The Zionist body in
Palestine was to be of a more organizational character for the Jewish community.
Perhaps feeling that his statement bad been a little too strong for liberal acceptance,
Weizmann also joined this correspondence in the Times. Writing as President of the English
Zionist Federation, he first claimed that,
it is strictly a question of fact that the Jews are a nationality. An overwhelming
majority of them had always had the conviction that they were a nationality,
which has been shared by non-Jews in all countries."
The letter continued:
The Zionists are not demanding in Palestine monopolies or exclusive privileges,
nor are they asking that any part of Palestine should he administered by a
chartered company to the detriment of others. It always was and remains a
cardinal principle of Zionism as a democratic movement that all races and
sects in Palestine should enjoy full justice and liberty, and Zionists are
confident that the new suzerain whom they hope Palestine will acquire as a result
of the war will, in its administration of the country, be guided by the same
principle. [1401 (emphasis supplied)
The competition for the attention of the British public and British Jewry by the Zionists and
their Jewish opponents continued in the press and in their various special meetings. A
manifesto of solidarity with the opinions of Alexander and Montefiore was sent to The Times
on 1 June 1917; and in the same month at Buffalo, N.Y., the President of the Annual
Convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis added his weight against Jewish
nationalism: "I am not here to quarrel with Zionism. Mine is only the intention to declare that
we, as rabbis, who are consecrated to the service of the Lord ... have no place in a movement
in which Jews band together on racial or national grounds, and for a political State or even for
a legally-assured Home." [1411
But while the controversy continued, the Zionists worked hard to produce a draft document
which could form a declaration acceptable to the Allies, particularly Britain and the United
States, and which would be in the nature of a charter of international status for their aims in
Palestine. This was treated as a matter of urgency, as Weizmann believed it would remove
the support from non-Zionist Jews [1421 and ensure against the uncertainties inseparable
from the war.
On 13 June 1917 Weizmann wrote Sir Ronald Graham at the Foreign Office that "it appears
desirable from every point of view that the British Government should give expression to its
sympathy and support of the Zionist claims on Pales tine. In fact, it need only confirm the
view which eminent and representative members of the Government have many times
expressed to us ... " [1431 This was timed to coincide with a minute of the same date of one
of Balfour's advisers in which it was suggested that the time had arrived "when we might
meet the wishes of the Zionists and give them an assurance that H.M.G. are in general
sympathy with their aspirations. " [1441 To which Balfour remarked, "Personally, I should
still prefer to associate the U.S.A. in the Protectorate, should we succeed in securing it."
£1451
The Zionists also had to counter tentative British and American plans to seek a separate
peace with Turkey. When Weizmann, for the Zionists, together with Malcolm, for the
Armenians, went on 10 June to the Foreign Office to protest such a plan, Weizmann broadly
suggested that the Zionist leaders in Germany were being courted by the German
Government, and he mentioned, to improve credibility, that approaches were made to them
through the medium of a Dr. Lepsius.
The truth, probably, is that the Berlin Zionist Executive was initiating renewed contact with
the German Government so as to give weight to the pleading of their counterparts in London
that the risk of German competition could not be left out of account. Lepsius was actually a
leading Evangelical divine, well known for his championship of the Armenians, who were
then being massacred in Turkey. When Leonard Stein examined the papers of the Berlin
Executive after the war, his name was not to be found, and Mr. Lichtheim of the Executive
had no recollection of any overtures by Lepsius. [1461
In the U.S., in July 1917, a special mission consisting of Henry Morgenthau, Sr., and Justice
Brandeis's nephew, Felix Frankfurter, was charged by President Wilson to proceed to Turkey,
against which the United States did not declare war, to sound out the possibility of peace
negotiations between Turkey and the Allies. In this, Wilson may have been particularly
motivated by his passion to stop the massacres of Armenian and Greek Christians which were
then taking place in Turkey and for whom he expressed immense solicitude On many
occasions. Weizmann, however, accompanied by the French Zionist M. Weyl, forewarned,
proceeded to intercept them at Gibraltar and persuaded them to return home. [1471 During
1917 and 1918 more Christians were massacred in Turkey. Had Morgenthau and Frankfurter
carried out their mission successfully, maybe this would have been avoided.
This account appears in William Yale's book The Near East: A Modern History. He was a
Special Agent of the State Department in the Near East during the First World War. When I
had dinner with him on 12 May 1970 at the Biltmore Hotel in New York, I asked him if
Weizmann had told him how the special mission had been aborted. He replied that Weizmann
said that the Governor of Gibraltar had held a special banquet in their honor, but at the end
all the British officials withdrew discretely, leaving the four Jews alone. "Then," said
Weizmann, "we fixed it."
The same evening, he told me something which he said he had never told anyone else, and
which was in his secret papers which were only to be opened after his death. He later wrote
to me, after he had read The Palestine Diary, saying that he would like me to deal with those
papers.
One of Yale's assignments was to follow Wilson's preference for having private talks with key
personalities capable of influencing the course of events. He did this with Lloyd George,
General Allenby and Col. T.E. Lawrence, for example. Yale said he had a talk with
Weizmann "somewhere in the Mediterranean in 1919," and asked him what might happen if
the British did not support a national home for the Jews in Palestine. Weizmann thumped his
fist on the table and the teacups jumped, "If they don't," he said, "we'll smash the British
Empire as we smashed the Russian Empire."
Brandeis was in Washington during the summer of 1917 and conferred with Secretary of
State Robert S. Lansing from time to time on Turkish-American relations and the treatment of
Jews in Palestine. [1481 He busied himself in particular with drafts of what later became the
Balfour Declaration and the British Mandate for Palestine, and in obtaining American
approval for fhem. [1491 A considerable number of drafts were made in London and
transmitted to the United States, through War Office channels, for the use of the American
Zionist Political Committee. Some were detailed, but the British Government did not want to
commit itself to more than a general statement of principles.
On 18 July, such a statement, approved in the United States, was forwarded by Lord
Rothschild to Lord Balfour. It read as follows:
His Majesty's Government, after considering the aims of the Zionist
Organization, accepts the principle of recognizing Palestine as the National
Home [E] of the Jewish people and the right of the Jewish people to build up its
national life in Palestine under a protectorate to be established at the conclusion
of peace following the successful issue of war.
His Majesty's Government regards as essential for the realization of this principle
the grant of internal autonomy to the Jewish nationality in Palestine, freedom of
immigration for Jews, and the establishment of a Jewish national colonization
corporation for the resettlement and economic development of the country.
The conditions and forms of the internal autonomy and a charter for the Jewish
national colonizing corporation should, in the view of His Majesty's Government,
be elaborated in detail, and determined with the representatives of the Zionist
Organization . [1501
It seems possible that Balfour would have issued this declaration but strong representatives
against it were made directly to the Cabinet by Lucien Wolf, Claude Montefiore Sir Mathew
Nathan, Secretary of State for India Edwin Montagu, [F] and other non-Zionist Jews. It was
significant they believed that "anti-semites are always very sympathetic to Zionism," and
though they would welcome the establishment in Palestine of a center of Jewish culture,
some — like Philip Magnes — feared that a political declaration would antagonize other
sections of the population in Palestine, and might result in the Turks dealing with the Jews as
they had dealt with the Armenians. [1541 The Jewish opposition was too important to ignore,
and the preparation of a new draft was commenced. At about this time, Northcliffe and
Reading [G] visited Washington and had a discussion with Brandeis at which they
undoubtedly discussed Zionism. [1551
Multiple pressures at key points led Lord Robert Cecil to telegraph to Col. E.M. House on 3
September 1917: "We are being pressed here for a declaration of sympathy with the Zionist
movement and I should be very grateful if you felt able to ascertain unofficially if the
President favours such a declaration. " [1561 House, who had performed services relating to
Federal Reserve and currency legislation for Jacob W. Schiff and Paul Warburg, [1571 and
was Wilson's closet adviser, relayed the message, but a week later Cecil was still without a
reply.
On 1 1 September the Foreign Office had ready for dispatch the following message for Sir
William Wiseman, [H] head of the British Military Intelligence Service in the United States:
"Has Colonel House been able to ascertain whether the President favours sympathy with
Zionist aspirations as asked in my telegram of September 3rd? We should be most grateful for
an early reply as September 17th is the Jewish New Year and announcement of sympathy by
or on that date would have excellent effect." But before it was sent, a telegram from Colonel
House dated 1 1 September reached the Foreign Office.
Wilson had been approached as requested and had expressed the opinion that "the time was
not opportune for any definite statement further, perhaps, than one of sympathy, provided it
can be made without conveying any real commitment." Presumably, a formal declaration
would presuppose the expulsion of the Turks from Palestine, but the United States was not at
war with Turkey, and a declaration implying annexation would exclude an early and separate
peace with that country. [1581
In a widely publicized speech in Cincinnati on 21 May 1916, after temporarily relinquishing
his appointment as Ambassador to Turkey in favor of a Jewish colleague, Henry Morgenthau
had announced that he had recently suggested to the Turkish Government that Turkey should
sell Palestine to the Zionists after the war. The proposal, he said, had been well received, but
its publication caused anger in Turkey. [1591
Weizmann was "greatly astonished" at this news, especially as he had "wired to Brandeis
requesting him to use his influence in our favour ... But up to now I have heard nothing from
Brandeis." [1611
On 19 September Weizmann cabled to Brandeis:
Following text declaration has been approved by Foreign Office and Prime
Minister and submitted to War Cabinet:
1. H.M. Government accepts the principle that Palestine should be
reconstituted as the national home of the Jewish people.
2. H.M. Government will use its best endeavours to secure the achievement
of the object and will discuss the necessary methods and means with the
Zionist Organization . [1621
Weizmann suggested that non-Zionist opposition should be forestalled, and in this it would
"greatly help if President Wilson and yourself support the text. Matter most urgent." [1631 He
followed this up with a telegram to two leading New York Zionists, asking them to "see
Brandeis and Frankfurter to immediately discuss my last two telegrams with them," adding
that it might be necessary for him to come to the United States himself. [1641
Brandeis saw House on 23 September and drafted a message, sent the following day through
the British War Office. It advised that presidential support would be facilitated if the French
and Italians made inquiry about the White House attitude, but he followed this the same day
with another cable stating that from previous talks with the President and in the opinion of his
close advisers, he could safely say that Wilson would be in complete sympathy. [1651
Thus Brandeis had either persuaded Wilson that there was nothing in the draft (Rothschild)
declaration of 19 September which could be interpreted as "conveying any real commitment,"
which is difficult to believe, or he had induced the President to change his mind about the
kind of declaration, he could approve or was sure he and House could do so. [1661
On 7 February 1917, Stephen Wise had written to Brandeis: "I sent the memorandum to
Colonel House covering our question, and he writes, 'I hope the dream you have may soon
become a reality." [1671 In October, after seeing House together with Wise, de Haas reported
to Brandeis: "He has told us that he was as interested in our success as ourselves." To Wilson,
House stated that "The Jews from every tribe descended in force, and they seem determined
to break in with a jimmy, if they are not let in." [1681 Anew draft declaration had been
prepared; Wilson had to support it.
On 9 October 1917, Weizmann cabled again to Brandeis from London of difficulties from the
"assimilants" Opposition: "They have found an excellent champion ... in Mr. Edwin Montagu
who is a member of the Government and has certainly made use of his position to injure the
Zionist cause. " [1691
Weizmann also telegraphed to Brandeis a new (Milner-Amery) formula. The same draft was
cabled by Balfour to House in Washington on 14 October:
His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a
national home for the Jewish race and will use its best endeavours to facilitate
achievement of this object; it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done
which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing non- Jewish
communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed in any other
country by such Jews who are fully contented with their existing nationality and
citizenship. [1701
It was reinforced by a telegram from the U.S. Embassy in London direct to President Wilson
(by-passing the State Department), stating that the "question of a message of sympathy with
the (Zionist) movement" was being reconsidered by the British Cabinet "in view of reports
that (the) German Government are making great efforts to capture (the) Zionist movement."
[1211
Brandeis and his associates found the draft unsatisfactory in two particulars. They disliked
that part of the draft's second safeguard clause which read, "by such Jews who are fully
contented with their existing nationality and citizenship," and substituted "the rights and
civil political status enjoyed by Jews in any country. In addition, Brandeis apparently
proposed the change of "Jewish race" to "Jewish people." [1721 Jacob de Haas, then
Executive Secretary of the Provisional Zionist Committee, has written that the pressure to
issue the declaration was coming from the English Zionist leaders: "they apparently needed
it to stabilize their position against local anti-Zionism. If American Zionists were anxious
about it, Washington would act." De Haas continues:
Then one morning Baron Furness, one of England's unostentatious
representatives, brought to 44 East 23rd Street, at that time headquarters of the
Zionist Organization, the final draft ready for issue. The language of the
declaration accepted by the English Zionists based as it was on the theory of
discontent was unacceptable to me. I informed Justice Brandeis of my views,
called in Dr. Schmarya Levin and proceeded to change the text. Then with Dr.
Wise, I hurried to Colonel House. By this time he had come to speak of Zionism
as "our cause." Quietly he perused my proposed change, discussed its wisdom
and promised to call President Wilson on his private wire and urge the change.
He cabled to the British Cabinet. Next day he informed me that the President
had approved. I had business that week-end in Boston and it was over the long
distance wire that my secretary in New York read to me the final form as
repeated by cable from London. It was the text as I had altered it. [173]
"It seems clear," wrote Stein, "that .it was not without some prompting by House that
Wilson eventually authorized a favourable reply to the British enquiry." Sir William
Wiseman, "who was persona grata both with the President and with House, was relied upon
by the Foreign Office for dealing with the declaration at the American end. Sir William's
recollection is that Colonel House was influential in bringing the matter to the President's
attention and persuading him to approve the formula." [1741
On 16 October 1917, after a conference with House, Wiseman telegraphed to Balfour's
private secretary: "Colonel House put the formula before the President who approves of it
but asks that no mention of his approval shall be made when His Majesty's Government
makes formula public, as he had arranged the American Jews shall then ask him for
approval, which he will publicly give here. "[1751
The Balfour Declaration, as stated, was issued on 2 November 1917. Its text, seemingly so
simple, had been prepared by some the craftiest of the craft of legal drafting. Leaflets
containing its message were dropped by air on Germany and Austria and on the Jewish belt
from Poland to the Baltic Sea.
Seven months had passed since America entered the war. It was an epochal triumph for
Zionism, and some believe, for the Jews.
On the other hand, two months before the declaration, Sokolow had written of a marked
falling off in "le philo-semitisme d'autrefois," ascribed by some to the impression that the
Russian Jews were the mainspring of Bolshevism; and on the day it was issued, The Jewish
Chronicle complained of "the antisemitic campaign which a section of the press in this
country, indifferent to the national interests, is sedulously conducting." [1761 There only
remained certain courtesies to be effected. On November 1917, Weizmann wrote a letter of
thanks to Brandeis:
"... I need hardly say how we all rejoice in this great event and how grateful we
all feel to you for the valuable and efficient help which you have lent to the
cause in the critical hour ... Once more, dear Mr. Brandeis, I beg to tender to
you our heartiest congratulations not only on my own behalf but also on behalf
of our friends here — and may this epoch-making be a beginning of great work
for our sorely tried people and also of mankind." [1771
The other principal Allied governments were approached with requests for similar
pronouncements. The French simply supported the British Government in a short paragraph
on 9 February 1918. Italian support was contained in a note dated 9 May 1918 to Mr,
Sokolow by their ambassador in London in which he stressed the religious divisions of
communities, grouping "a Jewish national centre" with existing religious communities."
On 31 August 1918, President Wilson wrote to Rabbi Wise "to express the satisfaction I
have felt in the progress of the Zionist movement . . since ... Great Britain's approval of the
establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." Brandeis joined in
Zionist delight at the President's endorsement and wrote: "Since the President's letter,
anti-Zionism is pretty near disloyalty and non-Zionism is slackening." [1781 Non-Zionist
Jews now had a hard time if they wanted to disseminate their views; if they could not
support Zionism they were asked at least to remain silent.
On 30 June 1922, the following resolution was adopted by the United States Congress:
Favouring the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish
people;
Resolved by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States
of America in Congress assembled. That the United States of America favours
the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being
clearly understood that nothing shall be done which should prejudice the civil
and religious rights of Christians and all other non- Jewish communities in
Palestine, and that the holy places and religious buildings and sites in Palestine
shall be adequately protected. [J]
All people tend to see the world and its events in terms of their own experience, ideas and
prejudices. This is natural. It is a fact used by master politicians and manipulators of opinion
who form their appeals accordingly. The case of the Balfour Declaration is a fascinating
example of a scheme presenting a multiplicity of images according to the facet of mind on
which it reflected.
There were critics of the Balfour Declaration, although among the cacophony of many
events competing for attention, few but its beneficiaries concentrated on the significance of
what was being offered. One was the Jewish leader and statesman Mr. Edwin Montagu, who
had no desire that Jews should be regarded as a separate race and a distinct nationality. [18JJ
The other was Lord Curzon, who became Foreign Secretary at the end of October 1918. He
prepared a memorandum dated 26 October 1917, on the penultimate and final drafts of the
Balfour Declaration and related documents, and circulated it in the Cabinet. It was titled
"The Future of Palestine." Here are some extracts:
I am not concerned to discuss the question in dispute between the Zionist and
anti-Zionist Jews . I am only concerned in the more immediately practical
questions:
(a) What is the meaning of the phrase "a national home for the Jewish race in
Palestine," and what is the nature of the obligation that we shall assume if we
accept this as a principle of British policy?
(b) If such a policy be pursued what are the chances of its successful
realisation?
If I seek guidance from the latest collection of circulated papers (The Zionist
Movement, G.-164) I find a fundamental disagreement among the authorities
quoted there as to the scope and nature of their aim.
A "national home for the Jewish race or people" would seem, if the words are
to bear their ordinary meaning, to imply a place where the Jews can be
reassembled as a nation, and where they will enjoy the privileges of an
independent national existence. Such is clearly the conception of those who,
like Sir Alfred Mond, speak of the creation in Palestine of "an autonomous
Jewish State," words which appear to contemplate a State, i.e., a political entity,
composed of Jews, governed by Jews, and administered mainly in the interests
of Jews...
The same conception appears to underlie several other of the phrases employed
in these papers, e.g., when we are told that Palestine is to become "a home for
the Jewish nation," "a national home for the Jewish race," "a Jewish Palestine,"
and when we read of "the resettlement of Palestine as a national centre," and
"the restoration of Palestine to the Jewish people," all these phrases are variants
of the same idea, viz., the re-creation of Palestine as it was before the days of
the dispersion.
On the other hand, Lord Rothschild, when he speaks of Palestine as "a home
where the Jews could speak their own language, have their own education, their
own civilization, and religious institutions under the protection of Allied
governments," seems to postulate a much less definite form of political
existence, one, indeed, which is quite compatible with the existence of an alien
(so long as it is not Turkish) government...
Now what is the capacity as regards population of Palestine within any
reasonable period of time? Under the Turks there is no such place or country as
Palestine, because it is divided up between the sanjak of Jerusalem and the
vilayets of Syria and Beirut. But let us assume that in speaking of Palestine in
the present context we mean the old scriptural Palestine, extending from Dan to
Beersheba, i.e., from Banias to Bir es-Sabi... . an area of less than 10,000
square miles. What is to become of the people of this country, assuming the
Turk to be expelled, and the inhabitants not to have been exterminated by the
war? There are over a half a million of these, Syrian Arabs — a mixed
community with Arab, Hebrew, Canaanite, Greek, Egyptian, and possibly
Crusaders' blood. They and their forefathers have occupied the country for the
best part of 1,500 years. They own the soil, which belongs either to individual
landowners or to village communities. They profess the Mohammadan faith.
They will not be content either to be expropriated for Jewish immigrants, or to
act merely as hewers of wood and drawers of water to the latter.
A. Born in Rumania in 1856, his imposing presence and scholarship combined with "an
oracular manner suggesting that he had access to mysteries hidden from others, had
made him an important figure at Zionist Congresses and on Zionist platforms in
England and abroad." It was calculated that Sykes would be impressed by his
personality and background. I" 11 61
B. These included the socialist leader, Jules Cuesde, who had joined Viviani's National
Government as Minister of State; Gustave Herve: the publicist and future Minister de
Monzie; and others.
C. Privately, Sokolow resented Malcolm as "a stranger in the center of our work," who
was "endowed with an esprit of a goyish kind. " [1301
D. Of Jewish extraction. [ 1311
E. The French note represented a defeat for the "Syrian Party" in the government who
believed in French dominion over the entire area. This was not only due to the strong
representations of Sykes on behalf of his Government, but was assisted by those of
Baron Edmond de Rothschild, [1321 who prevailed upon the Alliance Israelite to
back the Zionist cause.
The result of the no less successful conversations in Rome and the Vatican were
cabled to the Zionist Organization over British controlled lines. [1331
F. The use of the term "National Home" was a continuation of the euphemism
deliberately adopted since the first Zionist Congress, when the term "Heimstaette"
was used instead of any of the possible German words signifying "state." At that time,
its purpose was to avoid provoking the hostility of non-Zionist Jews. [1511
The author or inventor of the term "Heimstaette" was Max Nordau who coined it "to
deceive by its mildness " until such time as "there was no reason to dissimulate our
real aim." [1521
The Arabic translation of "National Home" ignores the intended subtlety, and the
words employed: watan, qawm, and sha'b, are much stronger in meaning than an
abstract notion of government. [1531
G. (1879-1924). His father, the first Lord Swaythling, and Herbert Samuel's father were
brothers.
H. Rufus Isaacs, a Jewish lawyer, who had quickly risen to fame in his profession, and
then in politics. This was a period when elevations to the peerage for political and
financial assistance to the party in power were so numerous that the whole system of
British peerage was weakened. In 1916, Isaacs was a viscount; in 1917 an earl.
I. Joined Kuhn, Loeb & Co. in 1921. and was responsible for their liaison with London
banks, and was "in charge of financing several large enterprises." [1601
J. This was introduced by Mr. Hamilton Fish. His interpretation of his action was
clarified thirty-eight years later, when the World Zionists held their 25th Congress in
Jerusalem. David Ben Gurion, as Prime Minister of Israel, in his address to the
gathering stated: "every religious Jew has daily violated the precepts of Judaism by
remaining in the diaspora"; and, citing the authority of the Jewish sages, said:
"Whoever dwells outside the land of Israel is considered to have no god." He added:
"Judaism is in danger of death by strangulation. In the free and prosperous countries it
faces the kiss of death, a slow and imperceptible decline into the abyss of
assimilation." [1791
Mr. Hamilton Fish replied: "As author of the first Zionist Resolution patterned on the
Balfour Resolution, I denounce and repudiate the Ben Gurion statements as irreconcilable
with my Resolution as adopted by Congress, and if they represent the Government of Israel
and public opinion there, then I shall disavow publicly my support of my own Resolution, as
I do not want to be associated with such un-American doctrines. "[1801
Wilson and the War
If the contract with Jewry was to bring the United States into the Great War in exchange for
the promise of Palestine, did they in fact deliver, through Brandeis or anyone else?
For the German- Jewish princes of the purse in the United States, the evidence points more
to the Russian revolution being the factor of most weight in determining their attitude.
Was it the resumption of Germany's submarine blockade, the sinking of the Laconia, the
Zimmerman telegram, which really influenced Wilson for war? Was it the Zionist counsel of
Brandeis? In a careful study, Prof. Alex M. Arnett showed in 1937 that Wilson had decided
to put the United States into the war on the side of the Allies many months before the
resumption of U-boat warfare by Germany, which was promoted as a sufficient reason. [1821
In the propaganda battle for American public opinion between Britain and Germany, the
former had the advantage of language, and the fact that on 5 August 1914 they had cut the
international undersea cables linking Germany and the United States, thus eliminating quick
communication between those two countries and giving British "news" the edge in forming
public opinion.
The success of British propaganda methods were acknowledged by a German soldier of the
time when he dictated his memoirs, Mein Kampf, in 1925: "In England propaganda was
regarded as a weapon of the first order, whereas with us it represented the last hope of a
livelihood for our unemployed politicians and a snug job for shirkers of the modest heroic
type. Taken all in all, its results were negative."
British propaganda portrayed the war as one of just defense against a barbarian aggressor
akin to the hordes of Genghis Khan, who were rapers of nuns, mutilators of children, led by
the Kaiser — pictured as a beast in human form, a lunatic, deformed monster, modern Judas,
and criminal monarch.
Stories that German soldiers cut off the hands of Belgian children and crucified prisoners
and perpetrated and all sorts of other atrocities said to have been practiced in Belgium, were
circulated as widely as possible. The story about their making glycerine and soap from
corpses did not appear until the end of April 1917, when new stories were created by
American propagandists. One, a book called Christine, by "Alice Cholmondeley," a
collection of letters purporting to have been written by a teenage girl music student to her
mother in Britain until her death in 1914, mingled a damning catalogue of alleged German
character faults with emotional feelings for her fictitious mother and music. Propaganda
experts rated it highly. [1831
The head of the American section of the British propaganda bureau, Sir Gilbert Parker, was
able to report on his Success in the issue of his secret American Press Review for 1 1
October 1916 before the Presidential election: "This week supplies satisfactory evidence of
the permeation of the American Press by British influence."
Men of British ancestry still dominated the powerful infrastructure of the economy, filled
top Positions in the State Department in the influential Eastern universities, in the
communications and cultural media. Britain and France were more identified with
democracy and freedom, and the Central Powers with imperial militaristic autocracy. From
Oyster Bay, former President Theodore Roosevelt, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize,
performed high-pitched war dances of words in support of belligerency.
But at the Democratic convention, and in the subsequent campaign, it was William Jennings
Bryan and his allied orators who created the theme and slogan: "He kept us out of war."
Bryan had resigned as Secretary of State in June 1915 because he believed Wilson was
jeopardizing American neutrality and showing partiality towards England. In his last
interview, he told Wilson bitterly, "Colonel House has been Secretary of State, not I, and I
have never had your full confidence."
House, a secretive and subtle flatterer who had performed services relating to the Federal
Reserve Bank and currency legislation for Jacob W. Schiff and Paul Warburg, was
perceived by Wilson as the "friend who so thoroughly understands me," "my second
personality.... my independent self, His thoughts and mine are one."
Bryan had wanted to go on a peace mission to Europe at the beginning of 1915, but the
President sent House instead. House had actually sailed on the British ship Lusitania and as
it approached the Irish coast on 5 February, the captain ordered the American flag to be
raised.
The Intimate Papers of Colonel House record that on the morning of 7 May 1915, he and
the British Foreign Secretary Grey drove to Kew. "We spoke of the probability of an ocean
liner being sunk," recorded House, "and I told him if this were done, a flame of indignation
would sweep across America, which would in itself probably carry us into the war." An hour
later, House was with King George in Buckingham Palace. "We fell to talking, strangely
enough," the Colonel wrote that night, "of the probability of Germany sinking a trans-
Atlantic liner... " He said, "Suppose they should sink the Lusitania with American
passengers on board... "
That evening House dined at the American Embassy. A dispatch came in, stating that at two
in the afternoon a German submarine had torpedoed and sunk the Lusitania off the southern
coast of Ireland. 1,200 lives were lost, including 128 Americans. It took 60 years for the
truth about its cargo to be confirmed; that it had carried munitions which exploded when the
torpedo hit. But Secretary of State Bryan remarked to his wife, "I wonder if that ship carried
munitions of war... . If she did carry them, it puts a different face on the whole matter!
England has been using our citizens to protect her ammunition."
In a telegram to President Wilson from England on 9 May 1915, House said he believed an
immediate demand should made to Germany for assurance against a similar incident.
I should inform her that our Government expected to take measures ... to
ensure the safety of American citizens.
If war follows, it will not be a new war, but an endeavor to end more speedily
an old one. Our intervention will save, rather than increase loss of life. We can
no longer be neutral spectators .
In another telegram on 25 May, he noted that he had received from Ambassador Gerard a
cable that Germany is in no need of food. "This does away with their contention that the
starving of Germany justified their submarine policy."
The next day, House lunched with Sir Edward Grey and read him all the telegrams that had
passed between the President, Gerard and himself since last they had met. And he wrote on
30 May 1915, "I have concluded that war with Germany is inevitable, and this afternoon at
six o'clock I decided to go home on the S.S. St. Paul on Saturday. I sent a cable to the
President to this effect." After his arrival in the United States, he wrote to the President
from Rosslyn, Long Island, on 16 June 1915, a long letter which included the paragraph:
I need not tell you that if the Allies fail to win, it must necessarily mean a
reversal of our entire policy.
I think we shall find ourselves drifting into war with Germany ... Regrettable as
this would be, there would be compensations. The war would be more speedily
ended, and we would be in a strong position to aid the other great democracies
in turning the world into the right paths. It is something that we have to face
with fortitude, being consoled by the thought that no matter what sacrifices we
make, the end will justify them. Affectionately yours, E.M. House.
Are these references related to Zionism or Palestine? I think not. Perhaps the clue is that
immediately after the election of Wilson, House had anonymously published a political
romance entitled Philip Dru: Administrator. Dru leads a revolt and becomes a dictator in
Washington, where he formulates a new American constitution and brings about an
international grouping or league of Powers.
Let us look to the other side of the water again in 1916, a year later.
About a month before Malcolm's meeting with Sir Mark Sykes, Lloyd George gave an
interview to the President of the United Press Association of America, in which he said "that
Britain had only now got into her stride in her war effort, and was justifiably suspicious of
any suggestion that President Wilson should choose this moment to 'butt in' with a proposal
to stop the war before we could achieve victory."
"The whole world ... must know that there can be no outside interference at this stage.
Britain asked no intervention when she was unprepared to fight. She will tolerate none now
that she is prepared, until the Prussian military despotism is broken beyond repair... . The
motto of the Allies was 'Never Again!' " And this made worthwhile the sacrifices so far as
well as those needed to end the war with victory. [1841
Grey wrote to him on the 29th of September that he was apprehensive about the effect "of
the warning to Wilson in your interview... . It has always been my view that until the Allies
were sure of victory the door should be kept open for Wilson's mediation."
But the following month, at one of the formal regular meetings with the Chief of the
Imperial Staff, when Lloyd George received the familiar answers as to the course of the war
— the German losses were greater than the Allies, that the Germans were gradually being
worn down, and their morale shaken by constant defeat and retreat — he asked Sir Wm.
Robertson for his views as "to how this sanguinary conflict was to be brought to a successful
end ... He just mumbled something about 'attrition'."
Lloyd George then asked for a formal memorandum on the subject. This was not
encouraging, and said that an end could not be expected "before the summer of 1918. How
long it may go on afterwards I cannot even guess."
The facts were far from rosy, but were the hopes of Great Britain really hanging upon
American entry into the war? There were two other possible courses.
One was suggested by the Marquess of Landsdowne, a member of the Cabinet and a
statesman of considerable standing as the author of the Entente Cordiale in 1904. It was
contained in a Memorandum Respecting a Peace Settlement, circulated to the Cabinet with
the consent of the Prime Minister. Landsdowne suggested doubts as to the possibility of
victory within a reasonable space of time.
What does the prolongation of the war mean? Our own casualties already
amount to over 1,100,000. We have had 15,000 officers killed, not including
those who are missing. There is no reason to suppose that, as the force at the
front in the different theatres of war increases, the casualties will increase at a
lower rate. We are slowly but surely killing off the best of the male population
of these islands. The figures representing the casualties of our Allies are not
before me. The total must be appalling. [1851
The other members of the Cabinet and the Chief of Staff repudiated peace without victory.
The other course was that adopted: to thrust more men and money into the holocaust
(defined as a wholesale sacrifice or destruction). What would now be called political and
military summit meetings were held in France to plan for it. They commenced on 15
November 1916.
In the political presentations, the only reference to America seems to have been offered by
Lloyd George:
The difficulties we have experienced in making payment for our purchases
abroad must be as present to the minds of French statesmen as to ourselves.
Our dependence upon America is growing for food, raw material and munitions.
We are rapidly exhausting the securities negotiable in America. If victory shone
on our banners, our difficulties would disappear. [Asquith deleted the next
sentence, which read] Success means credit: financiers never hesitate to lend to
a prosperous concern: but business which is lumbering along amidst great
difficulties and which is making no headway in spite of enormous expenditure
will find the banks gradually closing their books against it.
This reference to Allied problems in getting more credit from the bankers in the United
States, who were predominantly German- Jewish, elucidates Schiff s agreement to arrange
credit for Britain through the Jewish banker Cassel — they were not waiting for a Balfour
Declaration, they were waiting for the Russian Revolution!
On the military side, there was general agreement at the summit conference that what was
needed was a "knock-out blow," and it was decided that the 1917 plan of campaign would
be an offensive on all fronts, including Palestine, with the Western Front as the principal
one.
On 7 December the Asquith government fell and Lloyd George, who was pledged to a more
vigorous prosecution of the war, took over the Government. Five days later, Germany and
her allies put forward notes in which they stated their willingness to consider peace by
compromise and negotiations.
The first of the battles opened on 9 April 1917, heralded by a bombardment of 2,700,000
shells. Another attack was launched by the French nine days later, these resulting in about a
million dead and wounded on both sides. The French Army mutinied, and General Petain
was put in charge.
At this time the two events which were to twist the world into a new shape were occurring,
the Russian Revolution and American entry into the war.
French Government wanted to defer all offensive operations until American assistance
became available, but the generals thought otherwise. Maj.-Gen. J.F.C. Fuller, whom I have
met, one of the few bright military -political minds in this century, tells us that Haig "had set
his heart on a decisive battle in Flanders, and so obsessed was he by it that he believed that
he could beat the Germans single-handed, and before the Americans came in." [1861 1 do
not think that people who did not live in the great days of the British Empire can have a
sense of the hubris of a Haig, unless one gets it from classical literature. Perhaps today it
would be found in the head of the World Bank, from whom we taxpayers, like the common
soldiers of that time, are so far removed! There was actually resentment in the England of
my boyhood about Americans claiming to have played any significant part in fighting the
Great War.
The outcome of the grandiosity of the generals and politicians was the costly Flanders
campaign of the summer and autumn. On 7th June it was opened by the limited and
successful Battle of Messines, which was preceded by a seventeen days' bombardment of
3,500,000 shells, and initiated by the explosion of nineteen mines packed with a million
pounds of high explosives.
On 31st July it was followed by the Third Battle of Ypres, for which the largest force of
artillery ever seen in British history was assembled. In all, the preliminary bombardment
lasted nineteen days, and during it 4,300,000 shells, some 107,000 tons in weight were
hurled onto the prospective low lying battlefield. Its entire surface was upheaved; all drains,
dikes, culverts and roads were destroyed, and an almost uncrossable swamp created, in
which the infantry wallowed for three and a half months. When, on 10th November, the
battle ended, the Germans had been pushed back a maximum depth of five miles on a
frontage often miles, at a cost of a little under 200,000 men to themselves, and, at the
lowest estimate, of 300,000 to their enemy.
Thus ended the last of the great artillery battles of attrition on the Western Front, and when
in retrospect they are looked on, it becomes understandable why the politicians were so
eager to escape them.
The Great War was like a greatly magnified version of the mutual destruction of noble men
in the Niebelungenlied. Set against each other by the vanity and lack of vision of their
rulers, the more they fought the more there was to avenge until death delivered them from
their need. "At the going down of the sun and in the morning," we should learn their lesson.
Britain's Obligation?
In a memorandum marked in his own handwriting "Private & Confidential" to Lord Peel
and other members of the Royal Commission on Palestine in 1936, James Malcolm wrote:
I have always been convinced that until the Jewish question was more or less
satisfactorily settled there could be no real or permanent peace in the world,
and that the solution lay in Palestine. This was one of the two main
considerations which impelled me, in the autumn of 1916, to initiate the
negotiations which led eventually to the Balfour Declaration and the British
Mandate for Palestine. The other, of course, was to bring America into the War.
For generations Jews and Gentiles alike have assumed in error that the cause of
Anti-Semitism was in the main religious. Indeed, the Jews in the hope of
obtaining relief from intolerance, engaged in the intensive and subversive
propagation of materialistic doctrines productive of "Liberalism," Socialism, and
Irreligion, resulting in de-Christianisation. On the other hand, the more
materialistic the Gentiles became, the more aware they were subconsciously
made of the cause of Anti-Semitism, which at bottom was, and remains to this
day, primarily an economic one. A French writer — Vicomte de Poncins — has
remarked that in some respects Anti-Semitism is largely a form of self-defence
against Jewish economic aggression. In my opinion, however, neither the Jews
nor the Gentiles bear the sole responsibility for this.
As I have already said, I had a part in initiating the negotiations in the early
autumn of 1916 between the British and French Governments and the Zionist
leaders, which led to the Balfour Declaration and the British Mandate for
Palestine.
The first object, of course, was to enlist the very considerable and necessary
influence of the Jews, and especially of the Zionist or Nationalist Jews, to help
us bring America into the War at the most critical period of the hostilities. This
was publicly acknowledged by Mr. Lloyd George during a recent debate in the
House of Commons.
Our second object was to enable and induce Jews all the world over to envisage
constructive work as their proper field, and to take their minds off destructive
and subversive schemes which, owing to their general Sense of insecurity and
homelessness. even in the periods preceding the French Revolution, had
provoked so much trouble and unrest in various countries, until their
ever-increasing violence culminated in the Third International and the Russian
Communist Revolution. But to achieve this end it was necessary to promise
them Palestine in consideration of their help, as already explained, and not as a
mere humanitarian experiment or enterprise, as represented in certain quarters.
It is no wonder that Weizmann did not refer to Malcolm in his autobiography, and Sokolow
privately resented Malcolm "as a stranger in the center of our work," who was "endowed
with an esprit of a goyish kind. " [1871
It is also worth noting that on page seven of his memorandum Malcolm quoted General
Ludendorff, former Quartermaster General of the German Army, and perhaps at least
remembered for heading an unsuccessful coup in Munich in 1923, as saying that the Balfour
Declaration was "the cleverest thing done by the Allies in the way of propaganda and that
he wished Germany had thought of it first."
On the other hand, might it not have provided some cold comfort for Ludendorff to believe
that the Zionist Jews were a major factor in the outcome of the war — if that is what he is
implying?
Malcolm's belief in the Balfour Declaration as a means of bringing the United States into the
war was confirmed by Samuel Landman, secretary to the Zionist leaders Weizmann and
Sokolow, and later secretary of the World Zionist Organization. As
the only way (which proved so to be) to induce the American President to come
into the war was to secure the cooperation of Zionist Jews by promising them
Palestine, and thus enlist and mobilize the hitherto unsuspectedly powerful
forces of Zionist Jews in America and elsewhere in favour of the Allies on a
quid pro quo contract basis. Thus, as will be seen, the Zionists having carried
out their part, and greatly helped to bring America in, the Balfour Declaration
of 1917 was but the public confirmation of the necessarily secret "gentlemens 1 "
agreement of 1916, made with the previous knowledge, acquiescence, and or
approval of the Arabs, and of the British, and of the French and other Allied
governments, and not merely a voluntary, altruistic and romantic gesture on the
part of Great Britain as certain people either through pardonable ignorance
assume or unpardonable ill-will would represent or rather misrepresent ... [1881
Speaking in the House of Commons on 4 July 1922, Winston Churchill asked rhetorically,
Are we to keep our pledge to the Zionists made in 1917...? Pledges and
promises were made during the war, and they were made, not only on the
merits, though I think the merits are considerable. They were made because it
was considered they would be of value to us in our struggle to win the war. It
was considered that the support which the Jews could give us all over the
world, and particularly in the United States, and also in Russia, would be a
definite palpable advantage. I was not responsible at that time for the giving of
those pledges, nor for the conduct of the war of which they were, when given,
an integral part. But like other members I supported the policy of the War
Cabinet. Like other members, I accepted and was proud to accept a share in
those great transactions, which left us with terrible losses, with formidable
obligations, but nevertheless with unchallengeable victory.
However, Hansard notes, one member, Mr. Gwynne, plaintively complained that "the House
has not yet had an opportunity of discussing it."
Writing to The Times on 2 November 1949, Malcolm Thomson, the official biographer of
Lloyd George, noted that this was the thirty-second anniversary of the Balfour Declaration
and it seemed a
suitable occasion for stating briefly certain facts about its origin which have
recently been incorrectly recorded.
When writing the official biography of Lloyd George, I was able to study the
original documents bearing on this question. From these it was clear that
although certain members of the Cabinets of 1916 and 1917 sympathized with
Zionist aspirations, the efforts of Zionist leaders to win any promise of support
from the British Government had proved quite ineffectual, and the secret
Sykes-Picot agreement with the French for partition of spheres of interest in the
Middle East seemed to doom Zionist aims. A change of attitude was, however,
brought about through the initiative of Mr. James A. Malcolm, who pressed on
Sir Mark Sykes, then Under-Secretary to the War Cabinet, the thesis that an
allied offer to restore Palestine to the Jews would swing over from the German
to the allied side the very powerful influence of American Jews, including Judge
Brandeis, the friend and adviser of President Wilson. Sykes was interested, and
at his request Malcolm introduced him to Dr. Weizmann and the other Zionist
leaders, and negotiations were opened which culminated in the Balfour
Declaration.
These facts have at one time or another been mentioned in various books and
articles, and are set out by Dr. Adolf Boehm in his monumental history of
Zionism, "Die Zionistische Bewegung," Vol. 1, p. 656. It therefore surprised me
to find in Dr. Weizmann's autobiography, "Trial and Error," that he makes no
mention of Mr. Malcolm's crucially important intervention, and even attributes
his own introduction to Sir Mark Sykes to the late Dr. Caster. As future
historians might not unnaturally suppose Dr. Weizmann's account to be
authentic, I have communicated with Mr. Malcolm, who not only confirms the
account I have given, but holds a letter written to him by Dr. Weizmann on
March 5, 1941, saying: "You will be interested to hear that some time ago I had
occasion to write to Mr. Lloyd George about your useful and timely initiative in
1916 to bring about the negotiations between myself and my Zionist colleagues
and Sir Mark Sykes and others about Palestine and Zionist support of the allied
cause in America and elsewhere."
No doubt a complexity of motives lay behind the Balfour Declaration, including
strategic and diplomatic considerations and, on the part of Balfour, Lloyd
George, and Smuts, a genuine sympathy with Zionist aims. But the determining
factor was the intervention of Mr Malcolm with his scheme for engaging by
some such concession the support of American Zionists for the allied cause in
the first world war.
Yours, & c,
MALCOLM THOMSON
According to Lloyd George's Memoirs of the Peace Conference, where, as planned many
years before, the Zionists were strongly represented,
There is no better proof of the value of the Balfour Declaration as a military
move than the fact that Germany entered into negotiations with Turkey in an
endeavor to provide an alternative scheme which would appeal to Zionists. A
German-Jewish Society, the V.J.O.D., [A] was formed, and in January 1918,
Talaat, the Turkish Grand Vizier, at the instigation of the Germans, gave vague
promises of legislation by means of which "all justifiable wishes of the Jews in
Palestine would be able to meet their fulfillment."
Another most cogent reason for the adoption by the Allies of the policy of the
Declaration lay in the state of Russia herself. Russian Jews had been secretly
active on behalf of the Central Powers from the first; they had become the
chief agents of German pacifist propaganda in Russia; by 1917 they had done
much in preparing for that general disintegration of Russian society, later
recognised as the Revolution. It was believed that if Great Britain declared for
the fulfillment of Zionist aspirations in Palestine under her own pledge, one
effect would be to bring Russian Jewry to the cause of the Entente.
It was believed, also, that such a declaration would have a potent influence
upon world Jewry outside Russia, and secure for the Entente the aid of Jewish
financial interests. In America, their aid in this respect would have a special
value when the Allies had almost exhausted the gold and marketable securities
available for American purchases. Such were the chief considerations which, in
1917, impelled the British Government towards making a contract with
Jewry, r 1891
As for getting the support of Russian Jewry, Trotsky's aims were to overthrow the
Provisional Government and turn the imperialist war into a war of international revolution.
In November 1917 the first aim was accomplished. Military factors primarily influenced
Lenin to sign the peace treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1918.
The Zionist sympathizers Churchill and George seemed never to lose an opportunity to tell
the British people that they had an obligation to support the Zionists.
But what had the Zionists done for Britain?
Where was the documentation?
"Measured by British interests alone," wrote the Oxford historian Elizabeth Monroe in 1963,
the Balfour Declaration "was one of the greatest mistakes in our imperial history!"
The Zionists had the Herzlian tradition — shall we call it — of Promises, "promises."
Considerable credit for the diplomacy which brought into existence the Jewish national
home must go to Weizmann. A British official who came into contact with him summarized
his diplomatic method in the following words:
When (the First World War) began, his cause was hardly known to the principal
statesman of the victors. It had many enemies, and some of the most formidable
were amongst the most highly placed of his own people ... He once told me that
2,000 interviews had gone into the making of the Balfour Declaration. With
unerring skill he adapted his arguments to the special circumstances of each
statesman. To the British and Americans he could use biblical language and
awake a deep emotional undertone; to other nationalities he more often talked
in terms of interest. Mr. Lloyd George was told that Palestine was a little
mountainous country not unlike Wales; with Lord Balfour the philosophical
background of Zionism could be surveyed; for Lord Cecil the problem was
placed in the setting of a new world organization; while to Lord Milner the
extension of imperial power could be vividly portrayed. To me, who dealt with
these matters as a junior officer of the General Staff, he brought from many
sources all the evidences that could be obtained of the importance of a Jewish
national home to the strategical position of the British Empire, but he always
indicated by a hundred shades and inflections of the voice that he believed that
I could also appreciate better than my superiors other more subtle and recondite
arguments. [1901
A) Vereinigung Judischer Organisationen in Deutschland zur Wahrung der Rechte des
Osten. (Alliance of the Jewish Organizations of Germany for the Safeguarding of the Rights
of the East.)
Triumph and Tragedy
Herzl correctly predicted a great war between the Great Powers. His followers organized to
be ready for that time to further their ambitions through exploiting the rivalry of the Great
Powers. They had a vested interest in promoting that war and in its continuance until
Palestine was wrested from Turkey by British soldiers.
They prepared for the Peace Conference at Versailles although they had no belligerent
standing, but they had the weight of the Rothschilds, Bernard Baruch, Felix Frankfurter, and
others, which made room for them.
In the Introduction to The Palestine Diary I wrote,
The establishment in 1948 of a "Jewish state" in Palestine was a phenomenal
achievement. In fifty years from the Zionist Congress in Basle, Switzerland, in
1897 — attended by a small number of Jews who represented little more than
themselves — the Zionist idea had captivated the vast majority of world Jewry,
and enlisted in particular Britain, America and the United Nations to intervene
in Palestine in its support.
In 1983, seventy-five years after the Balfour Declaration and nearly ninety years after the
first Zionist Congress in Switzerland a meeting was held there of the International
Conference on the Question of Palestine — but the conferees were not Jews — they were
Palestinians — two million are in exile — displaced by Jews!
Where is the meaning for us?
On a day-to-day level, we can look in our newspapers for Zionist tactics of influence and
leverage which we can document they have used successfully in the past.
Then there is a long-term strategy, From the mass of material in a century of history and in
our complex society of today I see the underlying effect of two themes, They influence the
lives of every one of us, and will continue to do so unless a change is made.
We can see them clearly in their early formulation, before they had been fed as valid data
into the information processing and software systems of our society, with the result that
most of the answers we get are wrong!
They are found in the conversation of Herzl and Meyer-Cohn in 1895. The sets of ideas are
those associated with Jewish nationalism and racism on the Right [1911 — racism being
defined by Sir Andrew Huxley P.R.S. as the belief in the subjugation of one race by another,
and on the other hand the concept of "universalism."
Acceptance of this input from the Right into our computations has resulted in the transfer of
some $50 billion from our pockets into theirs. [1921 In 1983, budgeted American tax money,
labeled "aid," alone amounts to $625 for every man, woman and child in Israel. [1931 It
results in our acceptance of concentration camps for Palestinians containing thousands of
people without a squeak from the so-called "international community" in acceptance of their
assassination, torture, deportation, closing of their schools and colleges, even of their
massacre. [1941 The lives of American troops — men and women, are committed to
supporting these crimes. [1951 Criticism is called "antisemitism," a word which computes as
"unemployable social outcast."
Jewish nationalism and Israeli policy planned the present destabilization of Lebanon in
1955. [1961 This is part of larger schemes to fragment and enfeeble possible challenges to
their supremacy in the Middle East. [1971
On the other hand we have "universalism." This, I believe was the factor motivating
Woodrow Wilson through House in his telegram of 30 May 1916 and letter of 16 June 1915
to the President, to which I have referred. "The League of Nations," the United Nations
Organization, are its printouts. Just as House was a coefficient of the international bankers,
so the United Nations and the international bankers have been part of the coefficient
whereby over $400 billion of the earnings of workers in countries where universalism is a
significant force, has been transferred to the peoples of Asia, Africa, South America and
Communist countries; money needed for our capital investment.
People should ask: How is it that, with such multiplication of industrial power and resources,
our peoples' standard of living and possibilities to have and support children have not
multiplied accordingly? Why do so many of our women have to work? Why does no public
figure — politician, labor leader — dare to ask — and raise the roof?
Universalism and Marxism compete superficially for first place as finalists in western culture
distortion. Both promote its ethnic dilution, but deny us the reality of racial differences.
Against our individuality and our nationalism, they and the global capitalists and their
corporations unite as transnationals to reduce all but themselves to a common consumer
market of blurred boundaries and one color. They would like one law — which they would
make; one armed force — which they would control. Universalism would impose — not a
global peace, but a global tyranny!
Universalism has come up with "interdependence," an expression used as a cover for the
expropriation of our earnings as foreign aid in various forms; it has anesthetized the sense of
self-defense of our countries so that those who have tried to stop their colonization by
people from exploding populations of Africa, Asia and Latin America have been made to
feel that they were depriving others of their "human rights."
In countries where they live other than Israel, Zionists are in the forefront of opposition to
restrictions on immigration. Note that even in 1903 a leader of the fight against the Alien's
Bill and against tightening up naturalization regulations in Britain was the pro-Zionist
Winston S. Churchill, and the super-Zionist Herzl appeared before the Royal Commission on
Alien Immigration to oppose any restriction.
And yet, my Arab friends born in Jerusalem are cast out and cannot return.
"If," said Herzl, "we wanted to bring about the unity of mankind independent of national
boundaries, we would have to combat the ideal of patriotism. The latter, however, will prove
stronger than we for innumerable years to come.
In a hundred years they have almost won that struggle.
In a conversation with Joseph Chamberlain in 1903, Theodore Herzl was asked how the
Jewish colony would survive in the distant future. Herzl said, "We shall play the role of a
small buffer state. We shall attain this not through the goodwill but from the jealousy of the
Powers."
This is the game that Israel plays today, obtaining its military supplies, its high technology,
and its billions of dollars from the pay packets of American workers, using the rivalry of the
USSR and the U.S.A.
We should not allow ourselves to be made pawns in the games of others.
Appendix
SECRET
Political Intelligence Department,
Foreign Office.
Special 3.
Memorandum on British Commitments to King Husein
(Page 9) With regard to Palestine, His Majesty's Government are committed by Sir H.
McMahon's letter to the Sherif on the 24th October, 1915, to its inclusion in the boundaries
of Arab independence. But they have stated their policy regarding the Palestinian Holy
Places and Zionist colonisation in their message to him of the 4th January, 1918:
"That so far as Palestine is concerned, we are determined that no people shall be subjected
to another, but that in view of the fact:
"(a.) That there are in Palestine shrines, Wakfs, and Holy Places, sacred in
some cases to Moslems alone, to Jews alone, to Christians alone, and in others
to two or all three, and inasmuch as these places are of interest to vast masses
of people outside Palestine and Arabia, there must be a special regime to deal
with these places approved of by the world.
"(b.) That as regards the Mosque of Omar, it shall be considered as a Moslem
concern alone, and shall not be subjected directly or indirectly to any
non-Moslem authority.
"That since the Jewish opinion of the world is in favour of a return of Jews to
Palestine, and inasmuch as this opinion must remain a constant factor, and
further, as His Majesty's Government view with favour the realisation of this
aspiration. His Majesty's Government are determined that in so far as is
compatible with the freedom of the existing population, both economic and
political, no obstacle should be put in the way of the realisation of this ideal."
This message was delivered personally to King Husein by Commander Hogarth, and the
latter reported on his reception of it as follows:
"The King would not accept an independent Jewish State in Palestine, nor was I
instructed to warn him that such a State was contemplated by Great Britain. He
probably knows nothing of the actual or possible economy of Palestine, and his
ready assent to Jewish settlement there is not worth very much. But I think he
appreciates the financial advantage of Arab co-operation with the Jews."
Notes
£11 A Survey of Palestine, 1945-1946, H.M.S.O., vol. I, p.l.
[21 Lowenthal, The Diaries of Theodor Herzl. pp.35.
f2al Ibid., p. 63.
[2bl Ibid., pp. 128-129, 132, 152, 176.
£31 Ibid., p. .215.
[41 Weizmann, Trial and Error, p.45-46.
[5] Stein, Leonard, Zionism, (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubaer and Ca., 1932).
p.62.
[6J Bela. Alex., Theodor Herzl (tr. Maurice Samuel). (Philadelphia: Jewish Palestine
Society), pp. 304-305; Halpern. The Ideal of a Jewish State, p. 144.
[7] Ibid,. For financial details, see pp. 262-264.
[81 Lowenthal, The Diaries of Theodor Herzl, p. 398.
[9J Lewisohn, Ludwig, Theodor Herzl. (New York: World. 1955). pp. 335-341.
riOl Bela. Theodor Herzl, p.490.
rill Ibid., pp. 361ff. 378f.
[12] Ziff, William B., The Rape of Palestine. (New York: Longmans & Green, 1938), p.
43.
f 1 31 British Foreign Office to Herzl, 19 lane 1903, Zionist Archives, Jerusalem.
£141 Tagebuecher, vol.111, pp, 412-413 (24 April 1903), Berlin 1922.
f 1 51 Stein. Leonard, The Balfour Declaration. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1916),
f 1 61 Lipsky, Louis, A Gallery of Zionist Profiles, (New York: Farrar, Straus & Cudahy,
1956), p.37.
[17] Halpern, The Idea of a Jewish State, pp. 154-155.
f 1 81 Stein, The Balfour Declaration, p. 78.
[19] Ibid., p. 35.
f201 Lipsky, A Gallery of Zionist Profiles, p. 94.
[21] Alsberg, F.A., Ha-Sh'ela ha-Aravit, vol. I, Shivat Zion, IV, pp. 161-209. Quoted by
Halpern in The Idea of a Jewish State, p. 267.
f221 Lipsky, A Gallery of Zionist Profiles, p. 36.
[231 Ibid., p. 98.
f241 Halpern, The Idea of a Jewish State, p.267.
f251 Lipsky, A Gallery of Zionist Profiles, pp. 95. 98.
f261 Protocols of the 10th Zionist Congress, p.ll.
f271 Lipsky, A Gallery of Zionist Profiles, p. 26.
f281 Halpern. The Idea of a Jewish State, p. 267.
f291 Report of the 12th Zionist Congress (London: Central Office of the Organization.
1922) pp. 13ff.
r301 Bela, A., Return to the Soil. (Jerusalem: Zionist Organization. 1952) p. 27.
[3JJ Hecht, Ben, Perfidy, (New York: Julian Messner, Inc., 1961), p.254.
f321 Reports submitted by the Executive of the Zionist Organization to the 12th Zionist
Congress, London, 1921, Palestine Report, p. 7.
[33J Hyamson, A.M., The Near East, 31 Oct. 1913, (London, 1917), p.68.
[34J Ibid., pp.39-40.
f351 Jewish Chronicle, 16 October 1908.
[36J Die Welt, 22 January 1909.
f371 Protocols of the 1 1th Zionist Congress, p. 6.
f381 Joffre, Joseph J.C., The Memoirs of Marshal Joffre, (London and New York:
Harper & Brothers, 1932), Vol.1, pp.38-39.
f391 Chamberlain, Austen, Down the Years, (London: Cassell & Co., 1935), p. 104.
[401 Churchill, Winston L.S., The World Crisis, 1911-1918, (London: T. Butterworth,
1931), Vol.1, p.234.
f4 1 1 Stein, The Balfour Declaration, pp. 104-105.
[42J Ibid., $.109.
[43J Ibid., pp.233-234.
\44] Adamov, E., Ed., Die Europaeische Maechte und die Tuerkei Waehrend des
Weltkriegs-Die Aufteilung der Asiatischen Tuerkei. Translation from Russian
(Dresden, 1932), No.91.
f451 Stein, The Balfour Declaration, p. 97.
f461 For details see 1921 Reports submitted by the Executive Committee of the Zionist
Organization to the Twelfth Zionist Congress, London, 1921.
f471 Letter from Max Bodheimer to Otto Warburg, 22 November 1914 Jerusalem:
Zionist Archives), quoted in Stein, The Balfour Declaration, p.98, n.8.
[481 Stein, The Balfour Declaration, pp. 197-198.
[49J Gottheil to Louis 0. Brandeis, 1 October 1914 (unpublished).
r501 London: The Times, 10 November 1914.
f5 1 1 Letter from Greenberg to Herzl, 4 July 1903, quoted in Stein, The Balfour
Declaration, p.28. This seems to indicate Lloyd George's first contact with the
Zionist movement: Lloyd George, as you know, is an M.P.; he, therefore, knows
the ropes of these things and can be helpful to us.'
\51\ Samuel, Viscount Herbert, Memoirs, (London: Cresset Press, 1945), pp 139ff.
f531 Letter from Samuel to Weizmann, 1 1 January 1915, quoted in Stein, The Balfour
Declaration, p. 109, fo. 24; also Samuel, Memoirs, p. 144.
f541 Samuel, Memoirs, p. 143. In a letter of 20 November 1912 to the Zionist Executive,
Weizmann mentioned Haldane as one of the important persons to whom he thought
he could gain access: Zionist Archives.
f551 Stein, The Balfour Declaration, p. 1 1 1 , fn. 33; Crewe's mother-in-law was the
Countess of Rosebery, daughter of Baron Mayer de Rothschild, see p.l 12, fn. 34.
f561 Samuel, Memoirs, p. 141 .
f571 Oxford and Asquith, Earl, Memories and Reflections, (London: Cassell, 1928), Vol.
II , p. 59.
[581 Samuel, Memoirs, pp. 143-144.
f591 Oxford and Asquith, Memories and Reflections, Vol. II, p. 65.
f601 Ibid., p. 188; Reports submitted by the Executive Committee of the Zionist
Organization to the Twelfth Zionist Congress, London 1921. 'Organization Report.'
p. 113, gives a much smaller figure.
[61] Rischin, Moses, The Promised City: New York's Jews, 1870-1914, (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1962).
[62] German Foreign Office Documents at London Record Office, Washington to Berlin
K 692/K 176709-10, and K 692/K 1761 1-12-Berlin to Washington, 1 November
1914. 'Some time ago we already strongly advised Turkey, on account of
international Jewry, to protect Jews of every nationality, and we are now reverting
to the matter once again.'
[631 German Foreign Office Documents, K 692/K 176723 and 176745.
f641 Stein, The Balfour Declaration, p.201.
f651 Richard Lichtheim to Leonard Stein, 12 February 1952, The Balfour Declaration,
p.209, fn. 9.
f661 Report dated 8 March 1915, Papers of Nahum Sokolow, Quoted in Stein, The
Balfour Declaration, p. 210, fn. 10.
f671 Palestine Report to 1921 Zionist Congress, p. 34.
f681 Lichtheim, Richard, Memoirs, published in Hebrew version as She'ar Yashoov, (Tel
Aviv: Newman, 1953), Chapter XV
[691 Ibid., Chapter XVIII.
f701 The Times of history of the War; Vol. XIV, pp. 320-321; Stein, The Balfour
Declaration, pp. 212-213; e.g., Preussicher Jahrbuecher, August-September 1915,
article by Kurt Blumenfeld.
f711 Lichtheim, Memoirs, Chapter XVIII; Stein, The Balfour Declaration, pp. 213-214,
fns. 21.22.
[721 Stein, The Balfour Declaration, p.214, fn. 23.
f731 Stein, The Balfour Declaration, pp. 536-537; Note of the interview in
memorandum 28 August 1917, Zionist Archives.
[741 Stein, The Balfour Declaration, p.537. Even in 1959, Aaronssohn's superior,
Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen. wrote: "I am not at liberty to divulge any of his
exploits as it would publicize methods better kept secret"- Middle East Diary
1917-1956 (New York: Yoseloff, 1960) p. 5.
[751 Stein, The Balfour Declaration, p.217.
[761 Conjoint Foreign Committee 1916/210,5 April 1916; Stein, The Balfour
Declaration, p.218.
[771 Hatikvah (Antwerp), December 1927, contains article by Basch.
[781 Conjoint Foreign Committee, 1915/340.
[791 Ibid., 1916/183ff; Translated in Stein, The Balfour Declaration, p. 219.
[801 Poincare, R., Au Service de la France, (Paris: Plon, 1926), Vol. VIII, p.220,15 May
1916.
f8 1 1 Conjoint Foreign Committee, 1916/110, 124; Stein, The Balfour Declaration, p
220.
[821 Conjoint Foreign Committee, 1916/1 Iff; Stein, The Balfour Declaration, pp.
220-221.
[831 Die Welt, 1913, No. 35, p. 1146; Stein, The Balfour Declaration, p. 67.
[841 Conjoint Foreign Committee, 1916/130ff, 18 February 1916; Stein. The Balfour
Declaration, p. 221.
[851 Conjoint Foreign Committee, 1916/206; Stein, The Balfour Declaration, p. 223.
[861 Stein. The Balfour Declaration, p. 225.
[871 Adamov, E., Ed., Die Europoeische Maechte und die Tuerkei Waehrend des
Weltkriegs-Die Aufteilung der Asiatischen Tuerkei. Translation from Russian
(Dresden, 1932), No.80.
[881 Conjoint Foreign Committee, 1916/387.
[891 Lloyd George, War Memoirs, 1915-1916, p.434.
[901 Falls, Cyril, The Great War, (New York; Putnam, 1959), p. 180.
f9 1 1 Yale, William, The Near East: A Modern History, (Ann Arbor: The University of
Michigan Press. 1958) p. 263.
[921 Caster (Moses) Papers, quoted in Stein, The Balfour Declaration, p. 285, fn.
[931 Stein, The Balfour Declaration, pp. 488-490.
[941 Lloyd George, War Memoirs, 1915-1916, p.276.
[951 Landman, S., in World Jewry, Balfour Declaration: Secret Facts Revealed,
(London: Independent Weekly Journal, 1935), Vol.2, No. 43, 22 February 1935.
[96] Landman, Balfour Declaration: Secret Facts Revealed, Vol. 2, No 43, 22 February
1935; also, Malcolm, Origins of the Balfour Declaration: Dr. Weizmann's
Contribution, pp. 2-3.
[971 Landman, Balfour Declaration: Secret Facts Revealed, Vol. 2, No 43, 22 February
1935; also, Link, A.S., Wilson, The New Freedom, (Princeton: University Press.
1956) pp. lOff, 13ff.
[981 Ziff, The Rape of Palestine, p. 58.
[991 Mason, Alphoos T.M., Brandeis, A Free Man's Life, (New York: Viking Press,
1956), p. 451.
[1001 Ibid.,p. 452.
r 1 1 1 Gwynn, Stephen, Ed., Letters and Friendships of Sir Cecil Spring Rice, (London:
Constable, 1929), Vol. II, pp. 200-201.
1021 Yale, The Near East, p.268.
1031 Mason, Brandeis, A Free Man's Life, p. 448.
1041 The Times Documentary History of the War, London, 1917, Vol. IX, Part 3, p. 303.
1051 National Archives. Department of State, Decimal File 1910-1929, No.
881.4018/325.
1061 Jewish Advocate, 1 3 August 1915.
1071 Boston Post, 4 October 1915.
1081 The ESCO (Ethel Silverman Cohn) Foundation of Palestine. Inc., Palestine: A
Study of Jewish, Arab and British Policies, (New Haven: Yale University Press
1947), Vol. I, pp.87-89.
1091 Sykes, Two Studies in Virtue, p. 187.
1101 Somervell, D.C., British Politics Since 1900, (New York: Oxford University Press
1950), p. 113.
1111 Report of the Twelfth Zionist Congress (London: Central Office of the Zionist
Organization, 1922), p. 13ff.
1121 Stein, The Balfour Declaration, p. 25.
1131 Antonius, The Arab Awakening, p. 263.
1141 Taylor. Alan, Prelude to Israel, (New York: Philosophical Library, 1959), p. 19.
1151 The ESCO Foundation, Palestine: A Study of Jewish, Arab and British Policies,
Vol. I, pp. 92-93
1161 Stein, The Balfour Declaration, pp. 286-287.
1171 The ESCO Foundation, Palestine: A Study of Jewish, Arab and British Policies,
Vol. I, pp. 94.
1181 Taylor. Alan, Prelude to Israel, p. 20.
118a1 Stein, p 509 citing Brandeis' papers.
1191 New York Times 24 March 1917.
1201 United States: State Department Document 861.00/288, 19 March 1917.
120a1 120a. Stein, p 332 fn.
1211 Sykes, Two Studies in Virtue, p. 196.
1221 Jeffries, Palestine: The Reality, p. 140. Stein, The Balfour Declaration, p. 396, fn.
10.
1231 Stein, The Balfour Declaration, pp. 396-397.
1241 Ibid., p. 394 fn 3.
1251 Letter from Sokolow to Weizmann, quoted in The Balfour Declaration, p. 400, fn.
27.
1261 Stein, The Balfour Declaration, p. 400. fn. 29.
1271 Landman, S., in World Jewry, Balfour Declaration: Scent Facts Revealed
(London: Independent Weekly Journal 1935), 1 March 1935.
1281 Les Origines de la Declaration Balfour, Question d'Israel, (Paris, 1939), Vol. 17,
p. 680 (Translation)
1291 Ibid.
r 1 301 Translation from Russian in Stein, The Balfour Declaration, p. 395.
f 1 3 1 1 Stein, The Balfour Declaration, p. 414.
f 1 321 Sykes, Two Studies in Virtue, p. 211.
f 1331 Jeffries, Palestine: The Reality, p. 141.
IT341 Mason, Brandeis, A Free Man 's Life, p. 452.
f 1 3 51 Dugdale, Blanche E.C., Arthur James Balfour, (London, Hutchinson, 1936), Vol,
II. p. 231.
f 1361 Mason, Brandeis, A Free Man 's Life, pp. 452-453 .
[137] The Times, (London), 24 May 1917.
[138] Ibid., 28 May 1917.
f 1391 Jeffries, Palestine: The Reality, p. 148.
[140] Ibid., p 149.
ri411 Ibid., p 153.
IT421 Weizmann, Trial and Error, p. 179.
ri431 Stein, p. 462.
[144] Ibid.
IT451 Ibid.
ri461 Ibid., pp 463-64.
IT471 Yale, The Near East: A Modern History, p. 241 Also article by William Yale in
World Politics, (New Haven: April 1949), Vol. I, No. 3, pp. 308-320 on
Ambassador Morgenthau's Special Mission of 1917'; Stein, The Balfour
Declaration, pp. 352-360.
IT481 Mason, Brandeis, A Free Man's Life, p. 453.
[149] Ibid., p 453.
fl 501 Jeffries, Palestine: The Reality, pp. 163-164.
f 1 5 1 1 De Haas, Jacob, Theodor Herzl: A Biographical Study, (Chicago: University Press,
1027), Vol. I, pp. 194etseq
fl 521 Sykes, Two Studies in Virtue: On the basis of Nordan's manuscript, 'The Prosperity
of His Servant.' p 160 fn 1.
f 1 531 Sadaqu Najib, Qadiyet Falastin, (Beirut: 1946) pp. 19, 31.
f 1 541 Stein, The Balfour Declaration, p. 526.
f 1 551 Mason, Brandeis, A Free Man's Life, p. 673.
f 1 561 Stein, The Balfour Declaration, p. 504, fn. 5.
[157] Seymour, Charles (ed. by), The Intimate Papers of Col. House, (New York:
Houghton Mifflin, 1926), pp. 161, 174.
f 1 581 Stein, The Balfour Declaration, pp. 504-505, fn. 5, 7.
f 1 591 The Jewish Chronicle, 26 May 1916. In a personal communication, Prof. W. Yale
notes that the Cairo publisher Dr. Faris Nimr told him that Morgenthau had talked
with the Khedive, Abbas Hilmi, in 1914, regarding a role in promoting the cession
of Palestine to Egypt.
|T 601 New York Times, Obituary, 18 June, 1962.
f 1 6 1 1 Chaim Weizmann Papers in Stein, The Balfour Declaration, p. 506.
r 1621 Mason, Brandeis, A Free Man's Life, p. 453.
f 1631 Ibid., p.453. Stein, The Balfour Declaration, p.506.
|"1641 Brandeis to de Haas and Lewin-Epstein. 20 September 1917, Brandeis Papers, in
Stein, The Balfour Declaration, p. 506.
|"1651 Ibid., Brandeis to House, 24 September 1917.
|"1661 Stein, The Balfour Declaration, pp. 507-508.
|"1671 The Brandeis Papers in Stein, The Balfour Declaration, p. 509.
|"1681 The Wilson Papers in Stein, The Balfour Declaration, p. 509.
|"1691 Mason, Brandeis, A Free Man 's Life, p.453 .
ri701 Ibid.
f 1 T 1 1 Adler. 'The Palestine Question in the Wilson Era,' pp. 305-306. Quoted in Stein,
The Balfour Declaration, p. 528.
|"1721 See 'The Zionist-Israel Juridical claims to constitute "The Jewish people" nationality
entity and to confer membership in it: Appraisal in public international law.' W.T.
Mallinson, Jr., George Washington Law Review, Vol. 32, No. 5, (June 1964). pp.
983-1075, particularly p. 1015.
f 1731 The New Palestine published by the Zionist Organization of America, 28 October
1927, pp. 321,343.
|T 741 William Wiseman to Leonard Stein, 7 November 1952: in Stein, The Balfour
Declaration, p. 529.
f 1751 In a dispatch dated 19 May 1919 from Balfour to Curzon, 'The correspondence with
Sir William Wiseman in October 1917' is mentioned as evidence of endorsement of
the Balfour Declaration. Document on British Foreign Policy, First Series, Vol. IV,
No.196, fn. 4, p.281.
ri761 Stein, pp. 561-62.
[177] Mason, Brandeis, A Free Man 's Life, p. 454.
[178] Ibid.,pA55.
IT791 New York Times, 8 January 1961, 53:6.
[180] Ibid., 14 January 1961, 22:5.
f 1 8 1 1 Lloyd George, Memoirs of the Peace Conference, Vol. II, p. 732.
fl 821 Claude Kitchen and the Wilson War Policies, 1937, reprinted 1971, Russel.
IT831 Knightley, Phillip, The First Casualty, (N.Y.: Harcourt Brace, 1975), p. 122.
fl 841 War Memoirs of David Lloyd George, (Boston: Little, Brown, 1933), pp. 280-3.
IT851 War Memoirs, p.29 1 .
IT861 The Conduct of War, J.F.C. Fuller, (New Brunswick: Rutgers, 1961), p. 171
f 1 871 Translation from the Russian in Stein, The Balfour Declaration, p. 395.
f 1 881 Great Britain, the Jews and Palestine, (London, 1936), pp. 4-5, New Zionist Press.
f 1 891 George, Memoirs of the Peace Conference, p. 726.
IT901 Taylor, Prelude to Israel, p. 24.
f 1 9 1 1 Example: resigning Israeli Chief of Staff, Gen. Rafael Eytan, following the invasion
of Lebanon, likened the Palestinians to "cockroaches."
r 1921 The U.S. General Accounting Office figure for military and economic aid to Israel
from 1948 through 1982 was $24 billion. To this must be added the tax-free
contributions to Israeli organizations, loss on investment of funds in Israeli bonds by
American cities such as New York, by labor unions, and other entities. To the add
the costs of transfer of American technology to Israel. Since 1982, U.S. annual
taxpayer levies for Israel have been increased by Congress, so that the cost of Israel
for the United States could easily climb to well in excess of $100 billion over the
next decade.
ri931 New York Times, 10 July 1983.
|T 941 I recall distinctly how our soldiers fired their weapons at the elderly, at women and
children, all on order of their commanders. I witnessed the pleas and cries of small
children after their mothers were brutally killed in front of them by our soldiers.
Some of the soldiers even fired phosphorus canisters into Ein El-Helweh shelters,
where hundreds of civilians had taken refuge. None of them survived." Account by
Lt. Eytan Kleibneuf in Haolam Hazeh, Israel, 7 July 1982. Kleibneuf is a member
of Mi'jan Michael Kibbutz and member of Mapam's United Kibbutzim Movement,
and a reserve officer in the Israel infantry forces.
The West German weekly Stern, 24 August 1982, carried an article by Austria's
Jewish Chancellor, Bruno Kreisky, stating that Israel had committed "gigantic
crimes" in its invasion of Lebanon. "Israel stands morally naked. Its leaders have
shown their true face," he concluded.
During Israel's invasion of Lebanon, the U.S. Jewish Press carried a regular column
by Rabbi Meir Kahane advocating the killing of Palestinians of all ages. This he
wrote, was G-d's will as expressed in the Torah. Not to do so, opposed that will.
This is the Holy War (herem) which God "commanded" the Hebrews to wage
against the Canaanites for the possession of the Promised Land. The Old Testament
repeatedly refers to the terror that the herem would produce and to Israel's
obligation to destroy all persons with their property who remain in the land, lest
they become slaves or corrupting influences. The Hebrew word herem designates a
sacred sphere where ordinary standards do not apply, and in a military context ...
herem is a total war of annihilation without limits against men, women, animals and
property. For a discussion of the herem and its revival by the Zealots as reflected in
the Dead Sea Scrolls, see de Vaux, R., Ancient Israel, New York: McGraw-Hill.
1972,pp.258-267.
In psychological terms, the defense for indulgence in the horror of herem is
projection -projection of ideas of herem as being held by others, or indulging in
behavior which invites the "Group-Fantasy of Martyrdom." See Journal of
Psychohistory, Vol.6, No. 2, Fall 1978, H.F. Stein, "The Psychodynamic Paradox of
Survival Through Persecution," pp. 15 1-2 10.
f 1951 Within three weeks of the presentation of this lecture at the IHR conference, 241
U.S. Marines and 58 French servicemen were killed in Beirut on 23 October 1983.
IT961 Israel's Sacred Terrorism by Livia Rokach. Belmont 1980: Assoc, of Arab-Amer.
Grads. Amer. Grads. Contains the Memoirs of Moshe Sharett 1953-57, Israel's first
Foreign Minister and second Prime Minister.
IT971 "A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties," by Oded Yinon, a former officer in
the Israeli Foreign Ministry. In Kivunim (Directions), the Hebrew-language journal
of the Department of Information of the World Zionist Organization, February
1982. "The dissolution of Syria and Iraq ... into ethnically or religious unique areas
such as in Lebanon, is Israel's primary target on the eastern front in the long run,
while the dissolution of the military power of those states serves as the short term
target," the presentation reads in part.
From The Journal of Historical Review, Winter 1985-6 (Vol. 6, No. 4). This paper was first
presented by the author at the Fifth IHR Conference, 1983. It was also the basis for the
booklet, Behind the Balfour Declaration: The Hidden Origin of Today's Mideast Crisis,
published by the Institute for Historical Review in 1988.
About the Author
Robert John — foreign affairs analyst, diplomatic historian, author and psychiatrist — was
educated in England . He graduated from University of London King's College, and then
studied at the Middle Temple , Inns of Court, in London . He was the author, with Sami
Hadawi, of The Palestine Diary: British, American and United Nations Intervention,
1914-1948. This detailed two-volume work, first published in 1970, includes a foreword by
British historian Arnold Toynbee. Robert John died on June 4, 2007, age 86.
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