Israel’s Declaration cites the Balfour Declaration as the first in a series of international affirmations that underpin the right of the Jewish people to rebuild its National Home.
October 6, 1917 – War Cabinet Secretariat invites Jewish proponents and opponents to submit memoranda on the declaration draft. Chief Rabbi Hertz, Lord Rothschild, Nahum Sokolow, and Chaim Weizmann write in favor. Leonard Cohen, Philip Magnus, Claude Montefiore, wrote against. Stuart Samuel summarized the views of British Jews but did not take a stance. Opponents did not oppose Palestine as a sanctuary but objected to the “national home” idea.
Chief Rabbi Dr. Hertz writes to the “The Times” to dispel “the misconception” that the anti-Zionist Conjoint speaks for British Jewry
War Cabinet approves final text (Alfred Milner-L.S.Amery version) for Balfour Declaration
Weizmann meets with Gen. Jan Smuts, War Cabinet member, who supported the Zionist cause
In June 1917, Balfour asks Weizmann to submit a draft of a British government declaration on Palestine that would be satisfactory to the Zionists.
First Hebrew-language weekly Ha’Olam under Nahum Sokolow’s editorships is published in Germany
<586 BCE- Destruction of Jerusalem and First Temple; Mass deportation to Babylonia
1250 BCE -Conquest of Canaan under Joshua
July 1917 – T. E. Lawrence leads Arab force that capture Aqaba/Eilat from the Ottomans
Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, assassinated in Sarajevo setting off series of events that would lead to First World War.
SLIDE TWO Government-inspired anti-Jewish pogroms in Russia following assassination of Tsar Alexander II
SLIDE TWO Chaim Weizmann, Zionist statements and a driving force for Balfour Declaration, born in Motol, White Russia
SLIDE TWO French assimilated jewish army officer alred dreyfus court-martialed and publicly degraded after wrongful conviction
SLIDE TWO Theodor Herzl covers the Dreyfus Affair in Paris for Viennese newspaper “Neue Freie Presse”
SLIDE TWO Theodor Herzl, founder of modern political Zionism, born in Budapest
May 11, 1949 – Israel admitted into UN
January-July 1949 – Armistice Agreements signed with Egypt, Lebanon, Transjordan and Syria under UN auspices in Rhodes. The 1967 Six Day War begins from these boundaries
January 28, 1949 – Britain recognizes Israel
May 16, 1948 – Chaim Weizmann elected Chairman of the Provisional State Council of Israel. David Ben-Gurion is prime minister
May 14, 1948 – At 5 o’clock in the afternoon, on Shabbat Eve, Zionist leaders led by Ben-Gurion declare in Tel Aviv the establishment of a Jewish state. (Hebrew date: 5 Iyar 5708.) Transjordan, Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon invade and join battle on the side of Palestinian Arab irregulars. Arabs declare Israel’s creation a “Nakba” or catastrophe
May 14, 1948 – British Mandate for Palestine ends. British troops evacuate country
March 22, 1948 – Road to Jerusalem cut by Arab forces. Jewish Jerusalem besieged
November 29, 1947 – UN General Assembly votes 33-13, with 10 abstentions (including Britain), to adopt a resolution requiring the establishment of Jewish and Arab states in Palestine. The Jewish Agency accepts the decision; the Palestinian Arab leadership rejects the plan insisting that all of Palestine should be an Arab state
September 26, 1947 – Britain announces its intention to end the Mandate
UN Special Committee on Palestine calls for partition into two independent states, one Arab and one Jewish
June 11-July 9, 1947 – Arabs and Jews agree on truce
May 15, 1947 – UN Special Committee on Palestine set up
February 18, 1947 – Britain calls on the UN to decide Palestine’s fate. Ben-Gurion returns to Palestine. Clashes with British soldiers continue
August 13, 1946 – Britain redirects Holocaust survivors seeking entry to Palestine to Cyprus
October 1945 – The three Jewish underground branches Haganah, Irgun and Lehi agree to pursue joint military campaign against British
WWII ends in Europe. Death camps liberated. Six million Jews exterminated by Germans and their collaborators
“Kill the Jews wherever you find them. It would please God, history and religion,” exhorts Haj Amin al-Husseini in Arabic broadcast on the Nazi Berlin Radio
>July 23, 1937 –Sir Henry McMahon writes in the Times: “It was not intended by me giving this pledge to [the Sharif] to include Palestine in the area in whuch Arab independence was promised.
Hitler becomes German Chancellor ;
League of Nations forms commission to examine Arab-Jewish violence and rights to Jewish prayer at Western Wall
Arabs riot throughout Palestine; massacres in Jerusalem, Hebron (67 killed) and Safed
Mandate for Palestine comes into effect
Mandate’s terms finalized and unanimously approved by the League of Nations
British declare moratorium on Jewish immigration
>1921 – The British engineer the election of Haj Amin al-Husseini as the Mufti of Jerusalem. He’d been appointed May 8, 1920.
Deadly Arab riots in Jaffa, Petah Tikva, Hadera and Rehovot claim 47 dead between May 1-6, 1921
>April 11, 1921 – Transjordan established under Crown Prince Abdullah after Britain granted the Eastern part of Mandatory Palestine to the Arabs
Sir Herbert Samuel, a British Jewish Zionist, appointed High Commissioner
The San Remo Conference of the Allied Supreme Council in Italy endorses a Palestine Mandate based on Balfour Declaration
July 1919 – Christian Arab nationalists are Zionism’s most implacable foes. Syrian Congress in Damascus rejects idea of Jewish commonwealth and Jewish immigration to Palestine
Palestine’s temporary British military governor, Major-General Sir Arthur Wigram Money, lobbies government in London against carrying out Balfour Declaration. He is backed by General Clayton
Newspapers report Weizmann meeting Woodrow Wilson on sidelines of the year-long Paris Peace Conference
Weizmann meets Feisal in London prior to Paris Peace Conference. The leaders sign agreement on the development of an Arab state and [Jewish] Palestine. Faisal warns that the arrangement will be nullified if the Arabs are not granted the British-promised state
Chaim Weizmann meets Feisal in Aqaba
President Woodrow Wilson declares his 14 points as the path to permanent world peace. Self-determination promised for national minorities
Turks hang Palestinian Jewish NILI spies Naaman Belkind and Joseph Lishansky who’ve been working for the British
SLIDE 2 (B4) General Allenby enters Jerusalem on foot out of respect for the Holy City and quickly posts guards to protect all the sites held sacred by the Christian, Muslim and Jewish religions
Lord Robert Cecil tells House of Commons: “Our wish is that Arabian countries shall be for the Arabs, Armenia for the Armenians and Judaea for the Jews.”
The Manchester “Guardian” publishes text of Sykes-Picot Agreement, leaked by Russian communists
SLIDE 2 (B4) Board of Deputies thanks the Government for their “sympathetic interest in the Jews as manifested by” the Balfour Declaration. Anglo Jewish Association also identifies with Declaration. Jews in Poland and Russia rejoice
>November 11, 1917 – Montagu writes in his diary: “The Government has dealt an irreparable blow at Jewish Britons and they have endeavored to set up a people which does not exist; they have alarmed unnecessarily the whole Moslem world; and in so far as they are successful, they will have a Germanised Palestine on the flank of Egypt. Why we should intern Mahomed Ali in India for Pan-Mohammendanism when we encourage Pan-Judaism I cannot for the life of me understand”
“The Times” reports from Washington on American Jewish enthusiasm for Balfour Declaration. The newspaper says 90 percent of US Jews support Zionism
Newspapers report on Balfour Letter to Rothschild favoring Zionism. ‘A State for the Jews’ (“Daily Express”); ‘Palestine for the Jews’ (“The Times”)
The Communists overthrow Kerensky’s Russian government and install a Communist regime under Lenin
Balfour Declaration issued: Britain promises a national home for the Jews in Palestine
The Times” carries story headlined “Palestine for the Jews” reporting on a manifesto by British Jewish groups in support of Zionism
Britain declares war on Turkey. Dismemberment of Turkey is a war aim, says PM Asquith
PM DAVID LLOYD GEORGE AND CONSERVATIVE PARTY STATESMAN LORD CURZON MEET STRATEGIST AND DIPLOMAT SIR MARK SYKES ON THE EVE OF HIS DEPARTURE TO MIDDLE EAST. INSTRUCT HIM THAT NO PLEDGES SHOULD BE GIVEN TO THE ARABS CONCERNING PALESTINE
March 22, 1917 – Weizmann has serious practical talk with now Foreign Minister Arthur James Balfour on Zionism and a possible French or American role in Palestine
Sykes-Picot Agreement- France (Francois Georges Picot) and Britain (Sir Mark Sykes) concur on division of Ottoman Empire. Eretz Israel (Palestine) to be divided with France controlling the Galilee and Britain the Haifa area with Jerusalem under international control.
DECEMBER 24, 1915 – THE NEW YORK MORNING JOURNAL REPORTS THAT EIGHT MEMBERS OF THE BRITISH CABINET FAVOR ESTABLISHMENT OF A STRONG JEWISH SETTLEMENT IN PALESTINE AFTER THE WAR
October 24, 1915- Sir Henry McMahon writes to Sharif Hussein bin Ali of the Hashemite family of Mecca pledging British government to recognize and support the independence of the Arabs in return for Arab uprising against Ottoman Turks
JUNE 1915 – PRIME MINISTER DAVID LLOYD GEORGE INTERVIEWS CHAIM WEIZMANN AS HEAD OF THE BRITISH ADMIRALTY LABORATORIES FROM 1917 TO 1919, WEIZMANN WAS ENGAGED IN SCIENTIFIC WORK FOR THE WAR EFFORT — INVENTING A PROCESS TO PRODUCE SYNTHETIC ACETONE NEEDED FOR EXPLOSIVES.
RMS “Lusitania” sunk by German submarines
December 14, 1914 – Weizmann writes Ahad Ha’am about interview with Balfour who admired Weizmann’s assertiveness on Zionism
Herbert Samuel talks to British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey about Palestine’s fate
SLIDE 3 Turkey entered the war on the axis side on 5 November 1914
Slide 2 (B2) Outbreak of World War I. Britain declares war on Germany. US President Woodrow Wilson declares policy of US neutrality. Jewish world geographically divided among warring parties. Zionist programs paralyzed
April 23, 1909 – British Chief Rabbi Hermann Adler: Since destruction of Temple, Jews no longer constitute a nation and are exclusively a religious community
1909 – Tel Aviv is founded on sand dunes near Jaffa
MARCH 16, 1908 – VIOLENCE BETWEEN ARABS AND JEWS BREAKS OUT IN JAFFA.
Eighth Zionist Congress meets in The Hague. Decides to open Palestine branch in Jaffa led by Arthur Ruppin to facilitate agricultural settlement and development
January 9, 1906 – Weizmann holds conversation with Balfour on Zionism.
Herbert Samuel becomes first Jewish cabinet minister
December 29, 1901 – The Jewish National Fund is established
>September 10, 1897 – Reform Rabbi Isaac M. Wise of Cincinnati, Ohio writes in New York Times that a Jewish state is nowadays “impossible”
First Zionist Congress held in Basle, Switzerland August 29-31, 1897 – urges “a publicly and legally assured home in Palestine” for Jews and establishes the World Zionist Organization. Theodor Herzl elected president
Herzl publishes “The Jewish State” (“Der Judenstaat”)
Leon Pinsker publishes ‘Auto-Emancipation’
Moses Hess writes early Zionist polemic ‘Rome and Jerusalem’
Christian Crusaders capture Jerusalem – 1096
Arabs conquer Jerusalem 638
Romans destroy Second Temple. Beginning of the Exile