Balfour Declaration

Background

The background of British support for an increased Jewish presence in Palestine, though idealistically embedded in 19th-century evangelical Christian feelings that the country should play a role in the Advent of the Millennium and Christ's Second Coming, was primarily linked to geopolitical calculations. Early British political support was precipitated in the 1830s and 1840s as a result of the Eastern Crisis after Muhammad Ali occupied Syria and Palestine. With the geopolitical shakeup occasioned by the outbreak of World War I, the earlier calculations, that had lapsed for some time—Theodor Herzl's own attempts earlier to obtain international support for his project had failed—led to a renewal of strategic assessments and political bargaining regarding the Middle and Far East.

Early Zionism

Zionism arose in the late 19th century in reaction to anti-Semitic and exclusionary nationalist movements in Europe. Romantic nationalism in 19th century Central and Eastern Europe had helped to set off the Haskalah or "Jewish Enlightenment", creating a split in the Jewish community between those who saw Judaism as their religion, and those who saw it as their ethnicity or nation. The 1881-84 Anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian Empire encouraged the growth of the latter identity, resulting in the formation of the Hovevei Zion pioneer organizations and the publication of Leon Pinsker's Autoemancipation.

In 1896, Theodor Herzl, a Jewish journalist living in Austria-Hungary, published Der Judenstaat ("The Jews' State" or "The State of the Jews"), in which he asserted that the only solution to the "Jewish Question" in Europe, including growing antisemitism, was the establishment of a state for the Jews. This marked the emergence of political Zionism. A year later, Herzl founded the Zionist Organization (ZO), which at its first congress called for "the establishment of a home for the Jewish people in Palestine secured under public law". Proposed measures to attain that goal included the promotion of Jewish settlement there, the organisation of Jews in the diaspora, the strengthening of Jewish feeling and consciousness, and preparatory steps to attain those necessary governmental grants. Herzl died in 1904 without the political standing that was required to carry out his agenda of a Jewish home in Palestine.

Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann, later President of the World Zionist Organisation, began living in the UK in 1904 and met Balfour during his 1905-06 election campaign in a session arranged by Charles Dreyfus, his Jewish constituency representative.

During the first meeting between Weizmann and Balfour in 1906, Balfour asked what Weizmann's objections were to the 1903 Uganda Scheme. The scheme, which had been proposed to Herzl by Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain following his trip to East Africa earlier in the year, had been subsequently voted down following Herzl's death by the Seventh Zionist Congress in 1905, after two years of heated debate in the Zionist Organization. According to Weizmann's memoir, the conversation went as follows:

"Mr. Balfour, supposing I was to offer you Paris instead of London, would you take it?" He sat up, looked at me, and answered: "But Dr. Weizmann, we have London." "That is true," I said, "but we had Jerusalem when London was a marsh." He ... said two things which I remember vividly. The first was: "Are there many Jews who think like you?" I answered: "I believe I speak the mind of millions of Jews whom you will never see and who cannot speak for themselves." ... To this he said: "If that is so you will one day be a force." Shortly before I withdrew, Balfour said: "It is curious. The Jews I meet are quite different." I answered: "Mr. Balfour, you meet the wrong kind of Jews".

World War I

In 1914, war broke out in Europe between the Triple Entente (Britain, France and the Russian Empire) and the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary and later that year, the Ottoman Empire).

Following Britain's declaration of war on the Ottoman Empire in November 1914, Weizmann's efforts picked up speed. On 10 December 1914 he met with the British cabinet member Herbert Samuel, a Zionist, who believed Weizmann's demands were too modest. Two days later, Weizmann met Balfour again, for the first time since 1906.

A month later, Herbert Samuel circulated a memorandum entitled The Future of Palestine to his cabinet colleagues. The memorandum stated that "I am assured that the solution of the problem of Palestine which would be much the most welcome to the leaders and supporters of the Zionist movement throughout the world would be the annexation of the country to the British Empire". It was the first time in an official record that enlisting the support of Jews as a war measure was proposed.

Many further discussions followed, including a meeting between Lloyd-George and Weizmann in 1916, of which Lloyd-George described in his War Memoirs that Weizmann: "... explained his aspirations as to the repatriation of the Jews to the sacred land they had made famous. That was the fount and origin of the famous declaration about the National Home for the Jews in Palestine... As soon as I became Prime Minister I talked the whole matter over with Mr Balfour, who was then Foreign Secretary."

Other British commitments

In 1915 the British High Commissioner to Egypt, Henry McMahon, had exchanged letters with Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca, in which he had promised Hussein control of Arab lands with the exception of "portions of Syria" lying to the west of "the districts of Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo". Palestine lay to the southwest of the Damascus and wasn't explicitly mentioned. After the war the extent of the coastal exclusion was hotly disputed.

Lord Grey had been the Foreign Secretary during the McMahon-Hussein negotiations. Speaking in the House of Lords on 27 March 1923, he made it clear that he entertained serious doubts as to the validity of the British government's interpretation of the pledges which he, as foreign secretary, had caused to be given to Hussein in 1915. He called for all of the secret engagements regarding Palestine to be made public. Many of the relevant documents in the National Archives were later declassified and published. Among them were the minutes of a Cabinet Eastern Committee meeting, chaired by Lord Curzon, which was held on 5 December 1918. Balfour was in attendance. The minutes revealed that in laying out the government's position Curzon had explained that: "Palestine was included in the areas as to which Great Britain pledged itself that they should be Arab and independent in the future." Palestine is not explicitly mentioned in the correspondence, and territories which were not purely Arab were excluded by McMahon and Hussein, although historically Palestine had always formed part of Syria. The Arabs, taking Palestine to be overwhelmingly Arab, claimed the declaration was in contrast to the letters, which promised the Arab independence movement control of the Middle East territories "in the limits and boundaries proposed by the Sherif of Mecca" in exchange for revolting against the Ottoman Empire during World War I. The British claimed that the McMahon letters did not apply to Palestine, therefore the Declaration could not be a violation of the previous agreement.

On the basis of McMahon's assurances, the Arab Revolt began on 5 June 1916. However, in May 1916 the governments of the United Kingdom, France and Russia also secretly concluded the Sykes–Picot Agreement, which defined their proposed spheres of influence and control in Western Asia should the Triple Entente succeed in defeating the Ottoman Empire during World War I. This agreement divided many Arab territories into British- and French-administered areas and allowed for the internationalisation of Palestine. Hussein learned of the agreement when it was leaked by the new Soviet government in December 1917, but was satisfied by two disingenuous telegrams from Sir Reginald Wingate, High Commissioner of Egypt, assuring him that the British government's commitments to the Arabs were still valid and that the Sykes-Picot Agreement was not a formal treaty. Following the publication of the Declaration the British had dispatched Commander David George Hogarth to see Hussein in January 1918 bearing the message that the "political and economic freedom" of the Palestinian population was not in question. Hogarth reported that Hussein "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". Continuing Arab disquiet over Allied intentions also led during 1918 to the British Declaration to the Seven and the Anglo-French Declaration, the latter promising "the complete and final liberation of the peoples who have for so long been oppressed by the Turks, and the setting up of national governments and administrations deriving their authority from the free exercise of the initiative and choice of the indigenous populations."

The agreement proposed that an "international administration" would be established in an area shaded brown on the agreement's map, which was later to become Palestine, and that the form of the administration would be confirmed after consultation with both Russia and Hussein. Three months prior to the agreement of the memorandum, Sykes has been approached with a plan by Herbert Samuel in the form of a memorandum which Sykes thought prudent to commit to memory. Sykes commented to Samuel on the boundaries marked on a map attached to the memorandum, noting that the exclusion of Hebron and the "East of the Jordan" there would be less to discuss with the Muslim community.

Progress of the War in late 1917

The decision to release the declaration was taken by the British War Cabinet on 31 October 1917. This followed discussion at four War Cabinet meetings (including the 31 October meeting) over the space of the previous two months.

During the discussions, the wider war was in a period of stalemate. On the Western Front the tide would first turn in favour of the Central Powers in spring 1918, before decisively turning in favour of the Allies from July 1918 onwards. Although the US had declared war on Germany in the spring of 1917, they would not suffer their first casualties until 2 November 1917, by which point President Wilson would still be hoping to avoid the dispatch of large contingents of troops into the war. The Russian forces were known to be distracted by the ongoing Russian Revolution and the growing support for the Bolshevik faction, but Alexander Kerensky's Russian Republic had remained in the war, and would only withdraw after the final stage in the revolution on 7 November 1917. In the Middle Eastern theatre, there had been an ongoing stalemate in Southern Palestine since April 1917, and the Sinai and Palestine Campaign would not make any substantial progress until 31 October 1917.

War Cabinet discussions

In order to aid the discussions, the Cabinet Secretariat solicited interministerial clarification as well as the views of President Woodrow Wilson, six Zionist leaders and three non-Zionist Jews. Excerpts from the minutes of these four meetings provide a description of the primary factors that the War Cabinet had considered:

3 September 1917: "With reference to a suggestion that the matter might be postponed, [Balfour] pointed out that this was a question on which the Foreign Office had been very strongly pressed for a long time past. There was a very strong and enthusiastic organisation, more particularly in the United States, who were zealous in this matter, and his belief was that it would be of most substantial assistance to the Allies to have the earnestness and enthusiasm of these people enlisted on our side. To do nothing was to risk a direct breach with them, and it was necessary to face this situation."

4 October 1917: "...[Balfour] stated that the German Government were making great efforts to capture the sympathy of the Zionist Movement. This Movement, though opposed by a number of wealthy Jews in this country, had behind it the support of a majority of Jews, at all events in Russia and America, and possibly in other countries... Mr. Balfour then read a very sympathetic declaration by the French Government which had been conveyed to the Zionists, and he stated that he knew that President Wilson was extremely favourable to the Movement."

25 October 1917: "...the Secretary mentioned that he was being pressed by the Foreign Office to bring forward the question of Zionism, an early settlement of which was regarded as of great importance."

31 October 1917: "[Balfour] stated that he gathered that everyone was now agreed that, from a purely diplomatic and political point of view, it was desirable that some declaration favourable to the aspirations of the Jewish nationalists should now be made. The vast majority of Jews in Russia and America, as, indeed, all over the world, now appeared to be favourable to Zionism. If we could make a declaration favourable to such an ideal, we should be able to carry on extremely useful propaganda both in Russia and America."

The decision to release the declaration was driven by geopolitical calculations, some visible in Lloyd George's list of nine factors motivating his decision as Prime Minister to release the declaration, not least of which the view that a Jewish presence in Palestine would strengthen Britain's position on the Suez Canal and reinforce the route to Great Britain's imperial dominion in India.

Weizmann had argued that one consequence of such a public commitment by Great Britain, making the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, one of the Allies' war aims, was that it would have three effects: it would swing Russia to maintain pressure on Germany's Eastern Front, since Jews had been prominent in the March Revolution of 1917. It would rally the large Jewish community in the United States to press for greater funding for the American war effort, underway since April of that year; and, lastly, that it would undermine German Jewish support for Kaiser Wilhelm II. Some historians argue that British government's decision reflected what James Gelvin calls 'patrician anti-Semitism' in the overestimation of Jewish power in both the United States and Russia.

Gelvin cites at least three reasons for why the British government chose to support Zionist aspirations. Issuing the Balfour Declaration would appeal to two of Woodrow Wilson's closest advisors, who were avid Zionists. Jonathan Schneer agrees.

The cabinet believed that expressing support would appeal to Jews in Germany and America, and help the war effort; they also hoped to encourage support from the large Jewish population in Russia.

American Zionism was still in its relative infancy; in 1914 the Zionist Federation had a small budget of c.$5,000 and only 12,000 members, despite an American Jewish population of three million. However, the Zionist organizations had recently succeeded in a show of force within the American Jewish community in arranging a Jewish congress to debate the Jewish problem as a whole. This impacted British and French government estimates of the balance of power within the American Jewish public.

In addition, the British intended to preempt the expected French pressure for an international administration.

David Lloyd George, who was Prime Minister at the time of the Balfour Declaration, told the Palestine Royal Commission in 1937 that the Declaration was made "due to propagandist reasons." Citing the position of the Allied and Associated Powers in the ongoing war, Lloyd George shared this conclusion. In his Memoirs, published in 1939, Lloyd George further elucidated his position.

Authors and evolution of the draft

Under the new Conservative government which took power in October 1922, attempts were made to identify the background to the drafting. In December 1922, Sir John Evelyn Shuckburgh of the new Middle East department of the Foreign Office discovered that the correspondence prior to the declaration was not available in the Colonial Office, 'although Foreign Office papers were understood to have been lengthy and to have covered a considerable period'. A Foreign Office note in a Cabinet Paper from January 1923 stated 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 seem to be available.

Declassification of Government archives have allowed modern scholarship to piece together the choreography of the drafting of the declaration. In his widely cited 1961 book, Leonard Stein published four previous drafts of the declaration. Stein illustrated the evolution of the drafting from the original proposal by the Zionist Organization, followed by various iterations. Subsequent authors have debated as to who the "primary author" really was. In his posthumously published 1981 book The Anglo-American Establishment, Georgetown University history professor Carroll Quigley explained his view that the primary author of the declaration was Alfred, Lord Milner, and more recently, William D. Rubinstein, Professor of Modern History at Aberystwyth University, Wales, wrote that Conservative politician and pro-Zionist Leo Amery, as Assistant Secretary to the British war cabinet in 1917, was the main author of the Balfour Declaration.

Jewish national home vs. Jewish state

The term "national home" in the Declaration was intentionally ambiguous. For example, the phrase 'national homeland' had no legal value or precedent in international law, so its meaning was thus unclear when compared to other terms such as 'state'. The choice of stating such a homeland would be found 'in Palestine' rather than 'of Palestine' was also no accident. Explication of the wording has been sought in the correspondence leading to the final version of the declaration. The phrase "national home" was intentionally used instead of "state" because of opposition to the Zionist program within the British Cabinet. Following discussion of the initial draft the Cabinet Secretary, Mark Sykes, met with the Zionist negotiators to clarify their aims. His official report back to the Cabinet categorically stated that the Zionists did not want "to set up a Jewish Republic or any other form of state in Palestine immediately" but rather preferred some form of protectorate as provided in the Palestine Mandate. In approving the Balfour Declaration, Leopold Amery, one of the Secretaries to the British War Cabinet of 1917–18, testified under oath to the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry in January 1946 from his personal knowledge that:

The phrase "the establishment in Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish people" was intended and understood by all concerned to mean at the time of the Balfour Declaration that Palestine would ultimately become a "Jewish Commonwealth" or a "Jewish State", if only Jews came and settled there in sufficient numbers.

David Lloyd George, who was Prime Minister at the time of the Balfour Declaration, told the Palestine Royal Commission in 1937 that it was intended that Palestine may become a Jewish Commonwealth if and when Jews "had become a definite majority of the inhabitants":

The idea was, and this was the interpretation put upon it at the time, that a Jewish State was not to be set up immediately by the Peace Treaty without reference to the wishes of the majority of the inhabitants. On the other hand, it was contemplated that when the time arrived for according representative institutions to Palestine, if the Jews had meanwhile responded to the opportunity afforded them by the idea of a national home and had become a definite majority of the inhabitants, then Palestine would thus become a Jewish Commonwealth.

Both the Zionist Organization and the British government devoted efforts to denying that a state was the intention over the following decades, including in Winston Churchill's 1922 White Paper. However, in private, many British officials agreed with the interpretation of the Zionists that a state would be established when a Jewish majority was achieved; in particular, at a private meeting on 22 July 1922 at Balfour's home, both Balfour and Lloyd-George admitted that an eventual Jewish state had always been their intention.

The initial draft of the declaration, contained in a letter sent by Rothschild to Balfour, referred to the principle "that Palestine should be reconstituted as the National Home of the Jewish people." In the final text, the word that was replaced with in to avoid committing the entirety of Palestine to this purpose.

Civil and religious rights of non-Jewish communities in Palestine

This was described as part of a "double undertaking" by Prime Minister Ramsey MacDonald in an April 1930 speech in the House of Commons and repeated in the Passfield white paper and MacDonald's 1931 letter to Chaim Weizmann. It was described as a "twofold duty" by the Permanent Mandates Commission in 1924.

In an August 1919 memo discussing the Covenant of the League of Nations, Balfour wrote: “The contradiction between the letter of the Covenant and the policy of the Allies 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 do not 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 form 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 traditions, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land.” (Lewis 2009, p. 163)

Rights and political status of Jews in other countries

The original drafts of Rothschild, Balfour and Milner did not include the commitment that nothing should be done which might prejudice 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. Montagu, the only Jewish member of the British cabinet, voiced his opposition by declaring:

The policy of His Majesty's Government is anti-Semitic in result and will prove a rallying ground for anti-Semites in every country of the world.

Lord Rothschild took exception to the new proviso on the basis that it presupposed the possibility of a danger to non-Zionists, which he denied.

At San Remo, as shown in the transcript of the San Remo meeting on the evening of 24 April, the French proposed adding to the savings clause so that it would save for non-Jewish communities their "political rights" as well as their civil and religious rights. The French proposal was rejected.

Reaction to the Declaration

The text of the letter was published in the press one week after it was signed, on 9 November 1917.

Zionist reaction

The publication of the intent galvanized Zionism, which finally had obtained an official charter. In the ongoing Sinai and Palestine Campaign, both Gaza and Jaffa fell within several days. Once under British military occupation, large transfers of funds were possible, and a major effort began to drain the marshy land of the Valley of Jezreel, whose redemption as the breadbasket of Palestine became the priority of the Third Aliyah settlers, mainly from Eastern Europe.

Chaim Weizmann and Nahum Sokolow, the principal Zionist leaders based in London, had asked for the reconstitution of Palestine as "the" Jewish national home. As such, the declaration fell short of Zionist expectations.

The declaration spurred an extraordinary increase in adherents of American Zionism; in 1914 the 200 American Zionist societies comprised a total of 7,500 members, which grew to 30,000 members in 600 societies in 1918 and 149,000 members in 1919.

In August 1919, Balfour approved Weizmann's request to name the first post-war settlement in Mandatory Palestine, "Balfouria", in his honor. It was intended to be a model settlement for future American Jewish activity in Palestine.

Arab opposition

A delegation of the Muslim-Christian Association, headed by Musa al-Husayni, expressed public disapproval on 3 November 1918, one day after the Zionist Commission parade marking the first anniversary of the Balfour Declaration. They handed a petition signed by more than 100 notables to Ronald Storrs, the OETA military governor:

We have noticed yesterday a large crowd of Jews carrying banners and over-running the streets shouting words which hurt the feeling and wound the soul. They pretend with open voice that Palestine, which is the Holy Land of our fathers and the graveyard of our ancestors, which has been inhabited by the Arabs for long ages, who loved it and died in defending it, is now a national home for them... We Arabs, Muslim and Christian, have always sympathized profoundly with the persecuted Jews and their misfortunes in other countries... but there is wide difference between such sympathy and the acceptance of such a nation...ruling over us and disposing of our affairs.

The group also protested the carrying of new "white and blue banners with two inverted triangles in the middle", drawing the attention of the British authorities to the serious consequences of any political implications in raising the banners.

Balfour's stance was seen as a betrayal of British understandings with Arabs. 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 any formation of a Jewish state.

Response by Central Powers

Immediately following the publication of the declaration Germany entered negotiations with Turkey to put forward counter proposals. A German-Jewish Society was formed: Vereinigung jüdischer Organisationen Deutschlands zur Wahrung der Rechte der Juden des Ostens (V.J.O.D.) and in January 1918 the Turkish Grand Vizier, Talaat, issued a statement which promised legislation by which "all justifiable wishes of the Jews in Palestine would be able to find their fulfilment".

Evolution of British opinion

In October 1919, Lord Curzon succeeded Balfour as Foreign Secretary. Curzon had opposed the Declaration prior to its publication and therefore determined to pursue a policy in line with its "narrower and more prudent rather than the wider interpretation". Following Bonar Law's appointment as Prime Minister in late 1922, Curzon wrote to Bonar Law that he regarded the Balfour Declaration as "the worst" of Britain's Middle East commitments and "a striking contradiction of our publicly declared principles."

In August 1920, the report of the Palin Commission, the first in a long line of Commissions of Inquiry on the question of Palestine during the Mandate period, noted that "The Balfour Declaration... is undoubtedly the starting point of the whole trouble". The conclusion of the report mentioned the Balfour Declaration three times, stating that "the causes of the alienation and exasperation of the feelings of the population of Palestine" included:

Inability to reconcile the Allies' declared policy of self-determination with the Balfour Declaration, giving rise to a sense of betrayal and intense anxiety for their future;

Misapprehension of the true meaning of the Balfour Declaration and forgetfulness of the guarantees determined therein, due to the loose rhetoric of politicians and the exaggerated statements and writings of interested persons, chiefly Zionists; and

Zionist indiscretion and aggression, since the Balfour Declaration aggravating such fears.

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

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

Following the issuance of the Churchill White Paper in June 1922, the House of Lords rejected a Palestine Mandate which incorporated the Balfour Declaration by 60 votes to 25, following a motion issued by Lord Islington. The vote proved to be solely symbolic as it was subsequently overruled by a vote in the House of Commons following a variety of promises made by Churchill.

Longer term impact

The declaration had two indirect consequences, the emergence of a Jewish state and a chronic state of conflict between Arabs and Jews throughout the Middle East. Starting in 1920, the Intercommunal conflict in Mandatory Palestine broke out, which widened into the regional Arab–Israeli conflict, primarily from 1948-73 but extending in a more limited manner to 2006, and finally became the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, the ongoing local conflict which also began in 1948 and whose primary phase began following the 1964 foundation of the PLO. The Arab–Israeli conflict is often referred to as the world's "most intractable conflict".

Jonathan Schneer's 2010 study concluded that because the buildup to the declaration was characterized by "contradictions, deceptions, misinterpretations, and wishful thinking", the declaration sowed dragon's teeth and "produced a murderous harvest, and we go on harvesting even today." The foundational stone for modern Israel had been laid, but the prediction that this would lay the groundwork for harmonious Arab-Jewish cooperation proved to be wishful thinking.

The implementation of the declaration fed a disenchantment among the Arabs that alienated them from the British Mandatory Authorities. Palestinian historian Rashid Khalidi has argued that following the Balfour Declaration there ensued "what amounts to a hundred years of war against the Palestinian people."