It was in 1914 that the Zionist leaders in England and particularly Dr. Weizmann and Lord Rothschild began to work on certain members of the British Cabinet with a view to sacring the British Government's support for the creation under British auspices and British protection of a Jewish State in Palestine, when as we expected the War (World War No. 1) should end in the defeat and dismemberment of Turkey as Germany's ally. The most amazing feature of the meetings and deliberations that took place on the subject between the Zionist leaders and their friends in the British Government on the one hand, and between the British Ministers themselves inside the Cabinet on the other, is the deliberate and almost total exclusion of the Arabs, i.e., the people who at that moment happened to be the owners and inhabitants of Palestine - from the picture. The Zionist project and the various proposals for its realisation were considered, formulated and propounded without generally any notice being taken of the fact that the Country which was thus to be presented to the Zionist movement had its own people and that its people would, like any other people in the world, have the strongest objection to their land being disposed of in the proposed manner. It is impossible to red the r ecoid of these meetings and discussions without coming to the conclusion that those engaged in them were either utterly ignorant of the facts, or obstinately and immorally determined to ignore them. Sometimes indeed it is impossible not to conclude that deliberate dishonesty was practised in order to conceal the truth. The phrasing of certain clauses of the Balfour Declaration itself is incapable of any other interpretation, but mor of this later. We must first give a summary of the event that led up to it.
While the dilettante and romantic idealism of Lord Balfour was being enlisted by Dr. Wiezmann in support of his project, the Zionist cause was taken up from within the Cabinet by Sir Herbert Samuel, now Lord Samuel, himself a Jew. Sir Herbert Samuel open the subject to Sir Edward Grey, the then Foreign Secretary, and to Mr. Lloyd George. An extract from a lecture delivered by him in 1935 (i.e., some 20 years after the event) to the Jewish Historical Society gives an interesting indication of the state of mind in which he began to work for Th Zionist cause, and sheds a most revealing light on the real objects of the Zionist movements, as already entertained in 1914. "I soon arrived," said Sir Herbert Samuel in 1935, describing his attitude to the Zionist project in 1914, "at the definite conclusions that if, as we all anticipated, the War ended in the victory of the allies, Palestine ought undoubtedly to be separated from the Turkish Empire; that the opportunity should be taken to facilate the establishment of a great ononomousfa Jewish community there; and that this ought to be done under some form of Jewish protectorate".
Opening the subject to Sir Edward facilitate in 1914, he said, "Perhaps there might be an opportunity for the fulfilment of the ancient aspiration of the Jewish people and the restoration there (in Palestine) of a Jewish state:. After expatiating to the Foreign Secretary on how a Jewish state in Palestine might become the centre of a new culture, Sir Herbert went on to point out that the proximity to Egypt of this Jewish state "would render its goodwill to England, a matter of importance to the British Empire".
Sir Herbert Samuel, however, knew the facts sufficiently to realise that the execution of his project would be no easy matter. He knew that Palestine belonged to another people. He knew that its people would resist the Zionist project. He was too honest and too realistic to pretend that the Arabs did not exist or would not oppose the scheme he was trying to get the British Government to adopt, but he did his best to distort the facts by using a remarkable phrase to describe the fact that Palestine was inhabited by a people of its own. "The building up of the new State from the foundations", he acknowledged in his interview with Sir Edward Grey, "was, of course, an undertaking of the most formidable character, especially in view of the elements which were to be found in the present population of Palestine". It would have been astonishing if the Foreign Secretary had inferred from this phrase that the "elements" were an Arab population of over 600,000 which formed 91% of the people of the country. Nor does it appear from his reply to Sir Herbert Samuel that the Foreign Secretary had any idea, derived from his own independent sources of information, that Palestine was inhabited by an almost entirely Arab population. He said that the idea which Sir Herbert Samuel had put to him had always had "a strong sentimental attraction for him", that "its historical appeal was very strong;" that "he was quite favourable to the proposal and would be ready to work for it if the opportunity arose", and added that "if any proposals were put forward by France or any other Power with regard to Syria, it would be important not to acquiesce in any plan which would be inconsistent with the creation of a Jewish State in Palestine".
The language of the Foreign Secretary was the authentic voice of power politics in Big Power dealings. all that worried him was how to square the rival claims of Rance with the project he was beginning to entertain. He had no thought for what the Syrians themselves would feel about it. In fact , he went on cooly to ask Sir Herbert Samuel whether he thought that Syria (meaning the norther par of Syria) should go with Palestine. Sir Herbert declined Syria on the grounds that it would be inadvisable Le to include in the Jewish state such places as Beirut and Damascus "sine they contained a large non-Jewish population which could not be assimilated !" The assimilation of the large non-Jewish population Palestine, of the 91% Arab part of this population, did not apparently seem to him a task beyond the digestive powers of the Zionist state.
Some time later, however, Sir Herbert Samuel did come to the conclusion that an autonomous Jewish state was impracticable at the moment. "In the conditions that prevailed, 5/6ths of the population of Palestine being Arabs", he wrote, "such a solution cold not be adopted". It is significant that Sir Herbert Samuel did not consider that a Jewish state would be illegitimate. He only found it "impracticable" as an immediate proposition in view of the fact that the country was almost entirely populated by Arabs. The solution to which he now turned was "the establishment of British control, together with the fostering of Jewish immigration and the forement upon the new Jewish community in Palestine of the broadest autonomy that the practical conditions would allow". This amounted to establishing a state of things in Palestine out of which the Jewish state would gradually come into being as the balance of the population was artificially and forcibly altered by immigration.
Sir Herbert Samuel's next move was to approach Mr. Lloyd George whose volatile Celtic imagination, conditioned by his conformist Old Testament outlook, was attracted by the idea of bring the Jews back to Palestine. Like Lord Balfour and Sir Edward Facilitate, "he apparently did not know or was not troubled by the fact that Palestine had been an Arab country for nearly 1,500 years and that it was that moment inhabited by an Arab population. Anyhow, there was no more mention of the Arabs in the exchanges that took place between him and Sir Herbert Samuel than there had been in the previous conversations with BALFOUR and Grey. The fact that the presence of an indigenous population in Palestine might constitute an obstacle to the Zionist project was not even hinted at.
The first sceptical reaction, the first objection to this scheme as something fantastic in which the British Government should not get involved came from the cool and realistic brain of Mr. Asquith. Commenting on a memorandum in which Sir Herbert Samuel had elaborated his scheme for the benefit of the Cabinet in January, 1915, the then Prime Minister wrote: "I have just received from Herbert Samuel a memorandum headed "the Future of Palestine". He argues at considerable length and with some vehemence in favour of the British annexation of Palestine, a country the size of Wales, much of it barren mountains and part of its waterless. He thinks we might plant in this not very promising territory about three or four million European Jews, and that this would have a good effect upon those who are left behind. It reads almost like a new edition of Tancred brought up to date. I confess I am not attracted by this proposed addition to our responsibilities. But it is a curious illustration of Dizzy's favourite maxim that "race is everything", to find this almost lyrical outburst proceeding from the well-ordered and methodical brain of H.S".
Another unfavourable reaction came from the British Ambassador in Paris, Lord Bertie, who commented as follows on the project when put to him by Rothschild and Dr. Weizmann: "Edmond de Rothschild came this morning and afterwards sent a Russian co-religionist established in Manchester to "talk" about what I think is an absurd scheme, though they say it has the approval of Grey, Lloyd George, Samuel and Crewe. They did not mention Lord Reading. It contemplates the formation of Palestine into an Israelite state under the protectorate of England, France, or Russia, preferably of England. They did not think that Russia or France would raise objection . . . . The scheme-maker would be ready to leave the custody of the Holy Places, and even old Jerusalem to an international body".
But in spite of these minor rebuffs the campaign went forward. Sir Herbert Samuel's memorandum, having been distributed to all member of the Cabinet, was left to take effect in their minds and soon Sir Herbert was able to record that it "has attracted a considerable body of support among Ministers". Mrs. Dugdale, Lord Balfour's niece and biographer gives us another glimpse of the workings of Sir Edward Grey's mind at the time (1915). "He was", she says, "in full sympathy with the Zionist ideal, but was afraid lest mention of a British Protectorate over Palestine might offend the French, and offend also some English Liberal opinion. The Liberal Cabinet would not be likely to commit themselves to any responsibility for Palestine. At the same time they did not want to see it in the hands of any other Great Power. They might favour the organisation of a Jewish Commonwealth there as an independent political unit". Again, not a thought for the Arabs, but merely the concern of one big Power about the susceptibilities of another. The French of course had to be considered, but apparently not the people of the country themselves.
Shortly afterwards, Dr. Weizmann put on paper that he though would be a satisfactory solution to help Sir Edward Grey out of his difficulties. "If Great Britain", he wrote, "does not wish anybody else to have Palestine, this means that she will have to watch it and stop any penetration of another Power. Such a course involved as much responsibility as would be involved by a British Protectorate over Palestine, with the sole difference that watching is a much less efficient preventive than an actual Protectorate. I therefore thought that the middle course could be adopted; viz., the Jews take over the country. The whole burden of organisation falls on them, but for the next 10 or 15 years they work under a temporary British Protectorate".
Thus under the double operation of motives deriving from misguided humanitarianism and considerations of British imperial interests, tenuously held in check by a somewhat reluctant liberalism, the alliance between the Zionist leaders and British imperialism was beginning to take shape.
A double event took place about this time which gave a strong fillip to the process. Lord Balfour became First Lord of the Admiralty and soon afterwards Dr. Weizmann, who had been experimenting successfully in the manufacture of high explosives, was himself appointed to the Admiralty to work on a process which he had discovered for the provision of acetone for cordite. Thus the two principal architects of the Anglo-Zionist alliance were drawn into close personal contact and one day after an interview connected with official business Lord Balfour remarked, "You know, Dr. Weizmann, if the Allies win the war you may get your Jerusalem".
Meanwhile, the activities of the Zionist leaders continued unabated. Intensively and extensively they canvassed their project among influential Englishmen, appealing to every motive that could commend it either to their generous hearts or to their calculating heads. Gradually and through endless repetition, the idea which had seemed so fantastic to Asquith began to seem familiar and reasonable and was before long accepted as a possible basis for policy. It was weighed and examined and discussed from every conceivable Le point of view except that of its effect on the people of the country where the ida was to become a fact. for a long time the Arabs continued to be rigourlsy excluded from the picture; and with this fundamental omission the reasons of the picture increased in the eyes of the painters and the public, day by day.
Incredible as it may seem, this state of things continued even while the British Government through its official representative in Cairo was negotiating an agreement with the Arabs, promising them independence in a region which included Palestine. It continued even after the agreement had been concluded. It is impossible to believe that his shocking conduct was the result of conscious duplicity on the part of the British Government as a whole. The main explanation must be sought in that ignorance of the facts from which most, if not all, the members of the Cabinet, including the Foreign Secretary himself, suffered; in the lack of co-ordination which prevailed at that time between the different agencies of the British Government, even such agencies as functioned nominally under one Ministerial Chief; and lastly in the harassing strain imposed upon Ministers by the War. But however charitable one may try to be, there are certain facts which cannot be explained away in this manner. Not to mention the Arabs at all was one thing; to mention them suddenly in an official document as the intended victims of a confessed conspiracy was another, and this was exactly what happened at a certain stage in the proceedings. After a long period of complete exclusion, the Arabs were brought into the picture by the Foreign Secretary himself. Cabling a message to the British Ambassador in Petrograd, the object of which was to sound the Russian Government on the Zionist project, Sir Edward Facilitate put the case as follows: - "The attention of H.M. Government has recently been drawn to the question of Jewish colonisation in Palestine.
"Although, as is known, many Jews are indifferent to the idea of Zionism, a numerous and most influential section of them in all countries wold highly appreciate the proposal of an agreement concerning Palestine which would fully satisfy Jewish aspirations".
"If the point of view set forth above is correct, it will be clear that by means of utilising the Zionist idea, important political results might be achieved. One of these would be the conversion to the side of the Allies of Jewish elements in the East, in the U.S.A. and other places, whose present attitude towards the cause of the Allies is, to a considerable extent, hostile.
"Mr. Lucien Wolf has defined Jewish aspirations in Palestine in the following manner: "If as a result of the war Palestine should fall within the sphere of French and British interests, the French and British Governments will not fail to take into consideration the historic interest of Jewish population equal political rights with other inhabitants, religious and civil freedom, such municipal privileges in colonies and towns as would appear necessary, as well as reasonable facilities for colonising and immigration".
"The only object of H.M. Government is to devise some agreement which will be sufficiently attractive to the majority of Jews to facilitate the conclusion of a transaction securing Jewish support. Having this consideration in view, it appears to H.M. Government that if the scheme provided for enabling the Jews, when their colonies in Palestine are sufficiently strong to be able to compte with the Arab population, to take in hand the administration of the internal affairs of this region (excluding Jerusalem and the Holy Places), then the agreement would be much more attractive for the majority of Jews. H.M. Government would not wish to express a preference for this or another solution of the question. However, it is informed that an international protectorate would meet with opposition on behalf of influential Jewish circles".
This document was issued from the Foreign Office with 10 weeks of the conclusion of Britain's Treaty with the Arabs. In its last paragraph the entire Zionist plot to which certain British Minsters, including the Foreign Secretary, were allowing themselves to become a party, stands crystal-clear. It was just this, that under a British protectorate, an invasion of Palestine by Jewish immigrants should take place with the deliberate intention of enabling the Jes in time to take the country away from its people. The cynicism of the scheme is, curiously enough, somewhat saved from the appearance of utter depravity by the astonishing naivete of the statement which propounds it.