This paper represents an examination of the events and history surrounding the issuance of the Balfour Declaration in 1917. The history revolves around the key relationship that was to develop between the Zionist movement, its representatives, and the British government during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Balfour Declaration was a document that served both British colonial diplomatic policy, and Zionist political and settlement goals. This declaration and its inclusion into the League of Nations Palestine Mandate of 1922 laid the groundwork for the emergence of the state of Israel in 1948.(The Balfour Declaration, coupled with years of animosity between Jews and Arabs in the Middle East, has fostered an environment of hatred and mistrust. Many present day problems of the Middle East, both in terms of actual conflict and disagreements, can be traced to the Balfour Declaration and the underlying principles associated with its issuance.
The issuance of the Balfour Declaration achieved one of the main aims of the Zionist: the return of Jews to a homeland in Palestine, a return that had been recognized by a legitimate power. On the surface, the document may have appeared to be a purely British initiative of good will for the Zionist. Yet, the document underscores deeper rooted feelings in Britain and in Europe.
Following World War One and the various treaties that helped to secure its end, the League of Nations entrusted the Palestine Mandate to Britain in 1922. As stated earlier, this was one of the outcomes the British had hoped for as they liberated Palestine in 1917. This desire, coupled with Zionist desires, led to the issuance of the Balfour Declaration.(Lewis 84) For the administration of Palestine, the Palestine Mandate contained provisions which were detailed in 28 articles. Article 2 was to “place the country under such political administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish National Home.” Article 4 provides that “an appropriate Jewish agency shall be recognized as a public body for the purpose of advising and co-operating with the Administration of Palestine.” Article 6 undertakes to “facilitate Jewish immigration and encourage close settlement by Jews on the land.” Article 7 provides for the “acquisition of Palestinian citizenship by Jews.” (Tuchman 345-346).
Thus, four of the first seven articles of the Mandate dealt with the position of the Jews. The remaining articles were merely technical in nature. Nowhere in the Mandate were the Arabs mentioned by name other than as “other sections of the population” or as “various peoples and communities” (Tuchman 346). This was a very bad sign considering the Arabs enjoyed a majority of almost six to one at the end of World War One.
The Peel Commission of 1937, which was established to look into and attempt to resolve grievances between the Arabs and Jews, concluded, “unquestionably, the primary purpose of the Mandate, as expressed in its preamble and its articles, is to promote the establishment of the Jewish National Home” (Tuchman 346). The Balfour Declaration was a culmination of almost one hundred years of British strategic and economic interests in the region. The British government never wholeheartedly took up the Zionist cause for purely compassionate reasons. There was always some motive, whether it was economic, political, or strategic, behind the British initiative to take action on behalf of the Jews and the Zionist Movement. The question then arises as to why did it take so long for the Jewish realization of a national homeland to become a reality? The reason are numerous, but the main one was the Arab opposition to Jewish settlement in Palestine. Between 1923 and 1928, the Arabs wanted the purchase of land restricted and Jewish immigration, which was about 5,000 a year, to be curtailed or banned. (Gelvin 204).
The Palestine crisis deepened in the 1930s when, in reaction to Nazi persecution of Jews in Europe, Jewish settlement jumped dramatically; the Jewish population totaled more than 400,000 by 1939, comprising nearly a third of Palestine's inhabitants. Between 1935 and 1939, Britain advanced numerous proposals to stabilize the population with an Arab majority. The Arabs resented these schemes for saw further Jewish immigration as a threat to their existence. The Zionists rejected them altogether because the policies limited their immigration into Palestine to a few thousand a year (Gelvin 204). Between 1936 and 1939 the Arab Higher Committee formed to unite Arab opposition to Jewish claims and, led by the grand mufti (chief Islamic judge) of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husayni, carried on a virtual civil war. Thousands were killed, and many of the Arab Palestinian leaders were deported or forced to flee by the British government, who at this time was still administrating Palestine. (Gelvin 307) The conflicts of these years exposed serious Arab social fragmentation, as well as military deficiencies, that contrasted with the solidarity and organizational efficiency displayed by the Jews, who formed a paramilitary organization, the Haganah, during the period of unrest Britain's last serious attempts to reach a compromise were the inconclusive London Round Table Conference (1939) and the White Paper of that year, which promised the establishment within ten years of an independent Palestine retaining an Arab majority.(Lewis 168) The White Paper also limited Jewish immigration to 1,500 per month until 1944, when Jews would no longer be admitted to Palestine. This limit was a devastating blow to the Jews of Hitler’s Europe, particularly after the outbreak of World War Two (Gelvin 207). Following many years of wrangling with the British and the ultimate persecution of the Jews during World War Two, the followers of Zion took more drastic measures to secure their homeland in Palestine.
Fueled by Britain’s apparent lack of support following World War Two, for Britain refused to take a stand in support of the Jews, that helped to drive the Zionist in their creation of the state of Israel. Following the war, Jewish refugees took matters into their own hands based on several reasons. First, the victorious nations were slow to act on the Jewish demands of immigration to Palestine. Britain feared to act and the United States wanted to wait until further investigation into the refugee problem could be formulated. Before the United Nations, an inquiry committee listened to arguments presented by both the Zionists as well as the majority population of the Arabs. The Zionists, time and time again, referred to the mandate for Palestine and the Balfour Declaration as their right to immigrate to and create a Jewish homeland in Palestine, despite the fact that the Jews were outnumbered by over two to one by the native Arab population. The Arabs, and their Higher Committee, argued before the League of Nations, citing the Arab majority in Palestine, the nation’s blood relationship with the rest of the Arab world, the inability of Palestine to unite with other Arab countries that had attained or nearly attained self-government.. The Arabs furthered showed that between 1918 and 1946, the Arab majority had shrunk from 86 percent to 65 percent and the trend was going to transform the Arabs into the minority in the very near future.(Tuchman 348) The Arabs summarized their claims, then, by demanding an end to Jewish immigration to Palestine, the abolition of the Palestine Mandate, as well as the renunciation of the Balfour Declaration. The Arabs’ desires were simple; they wanted Palestine to be recognized as a sovereign state compatible with other Arab independent states. This was in direct opposition to everything the Zionist movement had stood for and achieved since the First Zionist Congress held by Herzl.
The Arabs repudiated the Balfour Declaration and the international agreement the United Nations had issued and immediately launched a guerrilla war. The Zionists were willing to accept the resolution because it gave them a firm base, a base they could possibly expand from in the future. The Arabs saw the agreement as an indignity to their sovereignty and amputation of their territory. The unavoidable result was a conflict. Between November 1947 and May 1948, both sides attempted to seize as much land as possible before the final withdrawal of British forces. Guerrilla attacks increased and finally on May 14,1948, David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the foundation of the Jewish state at Tel Aviv. (Lewis 150). The next day, the neighboring Arab armies launched attacks into Palestine. Yet, in the end, the Arabs were beaten on every front by the highly motivated Zionists. A final and lasting cease-fire was secured by the United Nations on January 7, 1949. (Lewis 150) The war was over; however, peace had not been made (Lewis 150). The Zionist movement had at last achieved its goals, the goals set out by Herzl and the First Zionist Congress. It was not all of the land they desired but for most, they were content with their gains. As for the Arabs, a foreign colony, the Zionists, had managed to seize their land and force many of their people to flee, all based on a mandate and a declaration passed by a European power.
Bitterness was all the Arabs received out of the peace settlement, and this tensin exists today. This bitterness was key to the Arabs’ and the neighboring nations failure to recognize the European Dihat, a modem colonialism, that had been imposed on them. Even though they were defeated, hostilities were only stalled, and many more wars were to surface following the announcement of the State of Israel and the accomplishment of the Zionist movement. To this day, one needs only open a daily newspaper to see the effects of British policy and the Balfour Declaration on the modem Middle East.
Works Cited
Gelvin, James L. The modern middle east: A History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005..
Lewis, Bernard. The shaping of the modern Middle East. Oxford University Press, 1994.
Lewis, Bernard. "Rethinking the Middle East." Foreign Affairs 71.4 (1992): 99-119.
Tuchman, Barbara Wertheim. Bible and sword: how the British came to Palestine. Macmillan, 1982.
