Balfour Declaration of 1917 Totally Explained

Everything about Balfour Declaration 1917 totally explained

The Balfour Declaration of 1917 (dated November 2 1917) was a classified formal statement of policy by the British government stating that the British government "view with favour" the establishment in Palestine of "a national home for the Jewish people" on the conditions 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." The declaration was made in a letter from Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour to Lord Rothschild (Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild), a leader of the British Jewish community, for transmission to the Zionist Federation, a private Zionist organization. The letter reflected the position of the British Cabinet, as agreed upon in a meeting on October 31 1917. It further stated that the declaration is a sign of "sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations."
The statement was issued through the efforts of Chaim Weizmann and Nahum Sokolow, the principal Zionist leaders based in London but, as they'd asked for the reconstitution of Palestine as “the” Jewish national home, the Declaration fell short of Zionist expectations.
The "Balfour Declaration" was later incorporated into the Sèvres peace treaty with Turkey and the Mandate for Palestine. The original document is kept at the British Library.

Text of the declaration

The declaration, a typed letter signed in ink by Balfour, reads as follows:

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'd bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.
Yours sincerely
Arthur James Balfour

Text development and differing views

The record of discussions that led up to the final text of the Balfour Declaration clarifies some details of its wording. The phrase "national home" was intentionally used instead of "state", and the British devoted some effort over the following decades, including Winston Churchill's 1922 White Paper, to denying that a state was the intention. However, in private, many British officials agreed with the interpretation of the Zionists that a state would be the eventual outcome.
An early draft used the word that in referring to Palestine as a Jewish homeland, which was changed to in Palestine to avoid committing to it being the whole of Palestine. Similarly, an early draft didn't include the commitment to not prejudicing the rights of the non-Jewish communities. These changes came about partly as the result of the urgings of Edwin Samuel Montagu, an influential anti-Zionist Jew and Secretary of State for India, who, among others, was concerned that the declaration without those changes could result in increased anti-Semitic persecution.
At that time the British were busy making promises. Henry McMahon had exchanged letters with Hussein bin Ali, Sherif of Mecca, in 1915, in which he'd promised Hussein control of Arab lands exclusive of the Mediterranean coast. The extent of the coastal exclusion isn't clear. Hussein protested that the Arabs of Beirut would greatly oppose isolation from the Arab state or states, but didn't bring up the matter of the Jerusalem area, which included a good part of Palestine. This suggests either that the area of Jerusalem and Palestine wasn't part of the inclusion promised to the Arabs, as shown in some maps and believed by pro-Arab historians, or that Palestine was included but Hussein didn't protest. The latter version is supported by Dr. Chaim Weizmann in his autobiography Trial and Error. This interpretation was supported explicitly by the British government in the 1922 White Paper.

Milner as the chief author

In his posthumously published 1982 book The Anglo-American Establishment, Georgetown University history professor Carroll Quigley revealed that the Balfour Declaration was actually drafted by Lord Alfred Milner, who was the head of the Rhodes-Milner Round Table Groups that Cecil John Rhodes called for in his will to be "Churches for the extension of the British Empire." Milner was the trustee of Rhodes' will, while both Milner and Rhodes were self-described British Race patriots. The recipient of the Balfour Declaration, Lord Rothschild, was also a close friend of Rhodes and was at an earlier time the trustee of Rhodes' will.
Quigley wrote:

"This declaration, which is always known as the Balfour Declaration, should rather be called 'the Milner Declaration,' since Milner was the actual draftsman and was apparently, its chief supporter in the War Cabinet. This fact wasn't made public until 21 July 1936. At that time Ormsby-Gore, speaking for the government in Commons, said, 'The draft as originally put up by Lord Balfour wasn't the final draft approved by the War Cabinet. The particular draft assented to by the War Cabinet and afterwards by the Allied Governments and by the United States. . .and finally embodied in the Mandate, happens to have been drafted by Lord Milner. The actual final draft had to be issued in the name of the Foreign Secretary, but the actual draftsman was Lord Milner."

Negotiation

One of the main proponents of a Jewish homeland in Palestine was Dr. Chaim Weizmann, the leading spokesman for organized Zionism in Britain. Weizmann was a chemist who had developed a process to synthesize acetone via fermentation. Acetone is required for the production of cordite, a powerful propellant explosive needed to fire ammunition without generating tell-tale smoke. Germany had cornered supplies of calcium acetate, a major source of acetone. Other pre-war processes in Britain were inadequate to meet the increased demand in World War I, and a shortage of cordite would have severely hampered Britain's war effort. Lloyd-George, then Minister for Munitions, was grateful to Weizmann and so supported his Zionist aspirations.
During the first meeting between Weizmann and Balfour in 1906, Balfour asked what payment Weizmann would accept for use of his process and was told, "There is only one thing I want: A national home for my people." Balfour asked Weizmann why Palestine—and Palestine alone—should be the Zionist homeland. "Anything else would be idolatry", Weizmann protested, adding: "Mr. Balfour, supposing I was to offer you Paris instead of London, would you take it?" "But Dr. Weizmann", Balfour retorted, "we have London", to which Weizmann rejoined, "That is true, but we'd Jerusalem when London was a marsh."
Weizmann eventually received both monetary compensation for his discovery and his place in history as first President of the state of Israel.

Contradictory to covenant

In a 1919 memorandum he wrote as a Cabinet Minister, Balfour wrote that the declaration contradicted the letter of the covenant (apparently referring to the League Covenant) which was intended in most cases to guarantee self determination for mandatory populations follows:

The contradiction between the letter of the Covenant is even more flagrant in the case of the independent nation of Palestine than in that of the independent nation of Syria. For in Palestine we don't propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country, though the American Commission has been going through the forms of asking what they are. The four great powers are committed to Zionism and Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long tradition, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder importance than the desire and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land. In my opinion, that's right.

Balfour at least, was evidently certain that Britain was committed to the Jewish cause by the declaration.

Controversy behind Declaration

British public and government opinion became increasingly less favorable to the commitment that had been made to Zionist policy. In Feb 1922 Winston Churchill, a fervent Zionist himself, telegraphed Herbert Samuel asking for cuts in expenditure and noting:

In both Houses of Parliament there's growing movement of hostility, against Zionist policy in Palestine, which will be stimulated by recent Northcliffe articles. I don't attach undue importance to this movement, but it's increasingly difficult to meet the argument that it's unfair to ask the British taxpayer, already overwhelmed with taxation, to bear the cost of imposing on Palestine an unpopular policy.

Sir John Evelyn Shuckburgh of the new Middle East department of the Foreign Office discovered that the correspondence prior to the declaration wasn't available in the Colonial Office, 'although Foreign Office papers were understood to have been lengthy and to have covered a considerable period'." The 'most comprehensive explanation' of the origin of the Balfour Declaration the Foreign Office was able to provide was contained in a small 'unofficial' note of Jan 1923 affirming that:

little is known of how the policy represented by the Declaration was first given form. Four, or perhaps five men were chiefly concerned in the labour-the Earl of Balfour, the late Sir Mark Sykes, and Messrs. Weizmann and Sokolow, with perhaps Lord Rothschild as a figure in the background. Negotiations seem to have been mainly oral and by means of private notes and memoranda of which only the scantiest records are available, even if more exists.

Arab opposition

The Arabs sensed danger in November 1918 at the parade marking the first anniversary of the Balfour Declaration. The Muslim-Christian Association protested the carrying of new 'white and blue banners with two inverted triangles in the middle'. They drew the attention of the authorities to the serious consequences of any political implications in raising the banners.
Later that month, on the first anniversary of the occupation of Jaffa by the British, the Muslim-Christian Association sent a lengthy memorandum and petition to the military governor protesting once more the Zionist intrusion.

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