The Balfour Declaration: Why It Was So Important

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                     

Finally the Jews had the answer they had worked so hard for.  Britain was for the establishment in Palestine of a national home for Jews.  Arthur James, Lord Balfour (1848-1930) was a British statesman and philosopher who was head of the government with which Herzl negotiated with in 1902-1903.  Later he was very impressed b Chaim Weizmann and his Zionist philosophy.  He was foreign secretary in 1917 when he issued the Balfour Declaration, an official statement from Britain.

                                                                                    Foreign Office
                                 November 2nd, 1917
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.

                           Arthur James Balfour

                           The Balfour Declaration

 This statement finally came about as the result of many long negotiations started by Chaim Weizmann, Nahum Sokolow and others shortly after the start of World War I.  Supporting this was Herbert Samuel, Chief Rabbi J.H. Hertz, the Haham Moses Gaster and others.  There was a lot of discussion on two things;  the formula of the Declaration and its timing.    The final decision of the British government was expedited by Balfour's visit to the US  in the spring of 1917 when he met with President Wilson who supported the efforts of the American Zionists who were headed by Brandeis.  

There were British Jews who were afraid that this would endanger the Jews in all countries.  This opposition made the government more cautious, and the wording submitted to recognize Palestine as the national home of the Jewish people and for providing a "Jewish National Colonizing Corporation" for the resettlement and economic development of the country was not accepted.  

When the Declaration had been approved by the British cabinet, it was sent to Lord Walter Rothschild who was asked to take it to the Zionist Federation. On April 24, 1920, it was decided by the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied Powers at the conference in San Remo that Britain should administer Palestine and be responsible for the implementation of the Balfour Declaration.  

In 1921, Transjordan was detached from the area covered by the British Mandate for Palestine and made a separate Emirate under Abdullah (1882-1951).  First he was an Emir, and then made himself king of Transjordan.  He was the 2nd son of Hussein, sherif of Mecca, so he was from Saudi Arabia.  It was his support of Britain during WWI that led to his nomination as ruler of Transjordan in 1923.  He was credited with a moderate attitude toward Zionism and had negotiated with Chaim Weizmann in 1922, but invaded Israel in 1948 anyway.  His attempts to reach an understanding with Israel were nullified by the growing influence of the Palestinian Arabs, and he was assassinated in Jerusalem allegedly at the instance of the Mufti, Haj Amin el-Husseini, the person who had gone to Germany and had met with Adolf Hitler.    . 

 It was approved by other Allied governments and incorporated into the Mandate in 1922.  According to Article II the Mandatory Power was responsible for placing the country under such political, administrative, and economic conditions as would secure the establishment of the Jewish national home and the development of self-governing institutions;  also for safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion.  

Other articles provided for the facilitation of Jewish immigration by the Mandatory Power, while ensuring the rights and status of the other sections of the community, and for encouraging settlement of the Jews on the land, including unrequired state and wastelands; for enacting a national laws to enable Jews taking up their residence in Palestine to acquire Palestine citizenship;  the recognition of English, Arabic and Hebrew as the official languages of Palestine; and the recognition of the holy days of the respective communities as legal days of rest.  

Article 25 delimits the borders of the country, excluding Transjordan from Palestine. King Abdullah had  renamed it the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in 1946.  The Palestine Mandate ended on May 15, 1948 with the withdrawal of the British administration.  This is the day Israel was then declared a state with the blessing of the vote in the United Nations.  Right away King Abdullah fought against the new Israel and took over the Arab area of Palestine which was Judah, Samaria and east Jerusalem.  

What the Arab King Abdullah had taken that was to be part of the Jewish Homeland was lost to Israel by his grandson, Hussein, in the Six Day War when all the Arabs had attacked Israel and lost, much to their surprise.  Hussein, born in 1935, succeeded to the throne in 1952.  He removed British officers from his Arab Legion in 1956 and signed a pact with Egypt and Syria but later refrained from joining the fighting during the Sinai Campaign.  His army had to retreat from Eastern Palestine when defeated in 1967.  Then he was threatened by Arab terrorist organizations with whom he had a major showdown in September 1970 with Black September.  In 1988 he renounced claims to the West Bank in view of Arab decisions that the PLO was the rightful authority.  

Transjordan had been the home of some of the 12 tribes of Israel back in c1200 BCE.   Reuben , Gad and half of Manasseh were cattle-keeping tribes and had settled there.  King David (1010-970 BCE)  later had conquered the whole land of what came to be called Transjordan including the rich copper mines of the Arabah.  His son, King Solomon (961-920 BCE)  had lost them or only held temporarily.  W Ammon was held by a Jewish family, the Tobiads for a time.  Then after the destruction of the first Temple by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BCE, it was rebuilt in 538-515 BCE.   The Edomites moved into southern Judah and their place was taken by the Nabateans.   Greek towns were established in hellenistic days. 

In the Byzantine days (70-637 CE) , Transjordan began to decline which was accelerated by the Arab conquest of Mohammad (570-620 CE) .  From the 8th to the 19th centuries, it was mostly left to the Bedouins to occupy except when the crusaders established themselves in Oultre Jourdain.  The first Crusade was in 1096-9.  This is when attacks were made on Jews living in Northern France and especially in the Rhineland where massacres occurred in cites of Mainz, Worms, Speyer, Cologne, etc and other places where Jews had found refuge from the Roman attack in Judah.  Jerusalem was taken by them in 1099 and in that Jews and Karaites were massacred.   Crusades went on with the last being in 1320 with attacks on Jews in southern France and northern Spain.  

Resource:  The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
update: 11:20am http://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/2013/10/still-bickering-over-balfour/?utm_source=Mosaic+Daily+Email&utm_campaign=96e25acaf1-Mosaic_2013_10_28&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0b0517b2ab-96e25acaf1-41144429

Revealing Facts About Sherif Hussein's Sons' Involvement Against Establishing Israel

Nadene Goldfoot
Sherif Hussein was the father of Abdullah, and Sherif had supported Zionism.  He must not have figured that this would lead to a completely independent Jewish state, though.  However, Abdullah's elder brother Emir Faisal had promised Chaim Weizmann his support in 1918 at the end of World War I. when Weizmann had visited him in his desert camp.  He had told him he would support the Balfour Declaration but did not mention conditions.  He thought Jews were very influential in the world and would help him achieve his coveted goal:  World sanction for an independent Greater Syria which he would head.  

Faisal didn't consider the Balfour Declaration to be the British rejection of earlier promises to the Arabs to support the establishment of an independent Arab world in the Middle East when the Ottoman Empire was gone.  After all, they had supported the British with an Arab military uprising against the Turks.  The promises to the Arabs were in vague terms by the British High Commissioner in Egypt, Sir Henry MacMahon, in correspondence with Hussein.

Sherif Hussein was the ruler of the Hedjaz area that later became known as Saudi Arabia.  He had assured D.G. Hogarth, a British representative in 1918 that he would support the Balfour Declaration---if it did not mean the establishment of an independent Jewish state. He lost the chance to be king of Arabia to Ibn Saud.

Saudi Arabia had never been as opposed to Zionism as most other Arab states.  Harry St. John Philby, a British adviser to the first king of Saudi Arabia, a Bedouin,  King  Abdulaziz b: 1876-d: 9 November 1953, otherwise known as Ibn Saud, wrote that he suggested to Weizmann a plan where all Palestine would go to the Jews, who would give Saud 20 million pounds to resettle the Palestine Arabs.

Weizmann, in referring to this plan, said that Winston Churchill favored such a solution, under which Saud would become "Lord of the Middle East.'  According to Philby, Saud waited for Churchill and Roosevelt to make the first move, but they didn't.  Then, Saud showed an uncompromising attitude towards the Jews in conversations with Roosevelt following the Yalta conference while on a cruiser on February 4-11, 1945. He had grown afraid of the other Arabs' reactions.    Roosevelt decided then to take no action which might prove hostile to the Arab people.  When  Truman came into office, this was thrown up to him as a reminder.  He rejected it, and did vote for Israel's statehood.  

Abdullah was in his Amman Shuneh Palace on December 17, 1947 reading a report about the partition plan to divide the 20% that was left of the Jewish Homeland between the Arabs and the Jews.  The Mufti of Jerusalem's plans were to arm his supporters to be ready when the British troops left on May 14, 1948.  They had collected 10,000 rifles and other light arms to give to the Palestine Arabs and were recruiting about 3,000 volunteers ready to be trained and organized.  Abdullah  was against this and wanted the intervention of the regular Arab armies to enter as the Arab Legions was the only modern well-trained regular Arab force.  With them, he could occupy the area allocated by the UN to the Arabs in accordance with his secret proposal to the Jews.

The Muft of Jerusalem, Syrians and Egyptians feared the Arab Legion would then occupy Arab Palestine.  Saudi Arabia was against arming the Palestinians and also bringing in the regular armies.  Iraq's rulers, Hashemites like Abdullah, would not cooperate with Transjordan.  They were trying to get a defense agreement with Britain and wanted to counter protests at home that the government was soft on imperialism and Zionism.  The premiers decided to implement the secret decisions of the Bludan Conference.

June 1946 in Bludan, Syria, the Arab States had up to now paid only lip service to anti-Zionism.  They were too busy in their own problems to move against the Jews of Palestine.  The Anglo-American Commission recommended that 100,000 Jewish refugees be allowed to enter Palestine immediately.  This need was that the Holocaust was over and survivors had no place to go.  They were being placed in detention camps in Cyprus, for one.

These leaders  were eager to see a conflict between Truman of the USA and and the British who were against it.  The British needed "evidence" to show that immigration would lead to bloodshed, so the Arabs called a conference of the Arab League Political Committee in Bludan.  They rejected the American idea of allowing immigration and secretly decided that if the Palestine Arabs went to war, the Arab States would not be able to stop their people from coming to their aid with money, arms and volunteers.

The British were busy instigating Arab rebellion and the British Representatives in Amman asked Abdulla if he would permit volunteers to cross into Palestine from Transjordan.  He was against the crossing himself but agreed.  He could be accused of selling out to the British and Jews.  Bevin himself approved of this idea.  They agreed to have the volunteers pass secretly after midnight so others would think they had infiltrated into Palestine without official Transjordan or British knowledge.  They would move in a group with Arab Legion guards marching to the front and rear until they crossed into Palestine.  They wouldn't stay in Jerusalem, but march to the Nablus area in central Palestine.  It all ended up that Britain would continue to supply arms to Egypt, Iraq and Transjordan.  On January 21, 20 trucks with Syrian license plates carrying over 700 Arab Liberation Army men under Safr Bek, a Syrian officer, raced across the border into Palestine to fight.  However, the British-Iraqi arms agreement was cancelled shortly after it had been drawn up when mobs rioted in Baghdad in protest against British "imperialism."

Resource:  Genesis 1948 by Dan Kurzman
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Saud
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yalta_Conference

Why is Jordan Not Palestine?

Nadene Goldfoot
Jordan is that neighbor of Israel on the east side with  75% of their population of 5,568,565  calling themselves Palestinians who happen to be the Muslim ones.  Remember that before 1948, both Jews and Muslims called themselves "Palestinians."

It's become a joke to think that these Palestinians with their Hamas and Fatah leaders will ever recognize Israel and live in a two state solution  and in peace at that!  Ever since 1948 they haven't signed any peace treaty that practically guaranteed them the moon.  They were the biggest holdouts who wanted all the land, not the responsibility of creating a state-G-d forbid!

The Palestinians have cancelled their treaties with Israel which they had signed where both sides agreed that their conflict would be solved through negotiations and not through unilateral actions.  They want to turn their issue of Palestine over to the UN, so Israel is not bound anymore to these accords.  On the table in the USA is the idea of a one state solution and the question of the fact that Jordan, with their king married to a Palestinian already and with a population where 75% is Palestinian, actually is Palestine using a pseudonym of Jordan.

The British Mandate did weaken and created Jordan through the pressure of Emir Abdullah (1882-1951), who wanted his own state, who said he wanted it as a country for his own  bedouin tribesmen. This is the 2nd son of Hussein, sherif of Mecca and later king of Hejaz who supported Britain during WWI and who had negotiated with Chaim Weizmann in 1922.

 Both Abdullah and Weizmann thought the land had been promised to them without knowing about the dealings with the other.  So Abdullah changed from being a moderate to invading Israel in 1948 along with all the others.  The land was called Transjordan back then in 1921and he ruled his area that was detached from the original land.  Then in 1948 he annexed the eastern part and proclaimed his Kingdom of Jordan.

His grandson,Hussein,  born in 1935,  took over in 1952.  He was defeated in his aggressive attack in 1967 and Israel was able to then govern Judea and Samaria.  In 1970 he expelled the PLO from his country because he had a major showdown in September where many were killed but later reconciled with Arafat and acted like the protector of Arabs.  In 1988 he left it all to the PLO to handle.   Today it is #30 highest  Muslim population size with 5,568,565 population of which 95% are Sunni Muslims.  Islam is the state religion, of course.

Israel has 1.4 million Arabs living in it as citizens with full rights.  If ever a Palestine is created in Gaza on the West and in Judea-Samaria on the East, Israel will be sandwich fodder for a shooting gallery as this would come about without recognition of Israel as a Jewish state with peace.  Israel would be worse sitting ducks than they already are.

The goal of Hamas-Fatah is to ethnically cleanse Palestine of any Jews!  How Democratic can you get!  This amounts to the expulsion of about 675,000 Jews from their home in Judea, Samaria and EASTERN  JERUSALEM because they are Jewish.  All this can come about with Arab pressure through the UN.

What's most irksome to me is it's not like these places haven't been home to Jews before.  They amount to our ancient homeland, land with archaeological evidence and memories.  We've got our stamp on it.  That was to be part of the Jewish Homeland decided at the end of WWI.

US Congressman Joe Walsh has put the bee in Netanyahu's bonnet to give up on the two-state solution and go for one state by applying its sovereignty to Judea and Samaria, but I see he has a newly formed government and is again approaching the PA to sit down and talk turkey.  Do you have the Champagne bottle handy?  I agree with Walsh, but it would be like hitting the hornet's nest with a stick right now.  We're not all at the level of Dr. Spock and his rational thinking.

So far, 680 missiles, rockets and mortars fell into southern Israel in 2011.  More continue to fall because they feel powerful and are backed by Iran and their brothers.    Wouldn't it be wonderful if a miracle happened and the UN actually told them to knock it off and that they have to behave like civilized people and not solve their issues with power and death?

Resource:  Caroline B. Glick's essay, Embracing dangerous delusions and not our friends through gerardrobins@sbcglobal.net
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-05-17/news/sns-rt-us-usa-israel-irondomebre84g10p-20120517_1_palestinian-rocket-salvos-short-range-rocket-shield-rockets-and-mortars
New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia