What did the Balfour Declaration say?

The Balfour Declaration was a letter from British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour to Lord Walter Rothschild.  It was the first statement of support by any government for Zionist aspirations.

It promised that Britain would aid in the creation of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine.

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 endeavors 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.‎

‎ Yours,
(signed) Arthur James Balfour

Who was Arthur Balfour?

Arthur James Balfour ‎was born in 1848 into a wealthy well-connected family. His ‎trajectory included Eton and Cambridge and by 1874 he had become a ‎member of parliament. He was appointed private secretary to his ‎influential uncle, Lord Salisbury (1830-1903), when the latter was ‎Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. ‎
Had he not entered politics Balfour might have turned to scholarship. ‎In 1879, he wrote Defense of Philosophic Doubt which sought to find ‎a balance between respect for science and religious belief. His health ‎was described as “delicate” and his manner one of languor. Lloyd ‎George quipped once that Balfour’s place in history would be fleeting ‎‎”just like the scent on a pocket handkerchief.”‎

Why was the letter written to Lord Rothschild?

The Balfour Declaration was addressed to Lionel Walter Rothschild in his capacity as leader of the British Jewish community.

Rothschild was the de facto head of Britain’s Jewish community serving as a governor of the Board of Deputies, of the United Synagogue, of the Anglo Jewish Association, and of the Jews’ Free School.

The letter could hardly be addressed to Weizmann, who had become a British citizen in 1910, in part because in the Zionist hierarchy Nahum Sokolow was his senior.

Who was Lord Rothschild?

He was a Zionist, naturalist, and philanthropist. Born into the Rothschild banking family, Lionel Walter Rothschild (1868-1937), ‎took on the business and civic responsibilities necessitated by his position. He served as a Conservative member of the House of Commons and on the boards of various Jewish communal institutions. His attachment to Zionism was heartfelt and of incalculable value to the movement — yet his greatest passion was reflected in his lifelong commitment to the natural sciences.

What was happening in the world on 2nd November 1917?

The world was torn asunder that Friday morning, November 2, 1917.
A world war, which had begun in the summer of 1914, was still pitting ‎the Central Powers — including Germany, Austria-Hungary and the ‎Ottoman Empire (Turkey) — against the Allies, led by France, Britain, ‎and Russia.
Only seven months earlier, on April 6, had the United ‎States abandoned neutrality and entered the fray on the side of the ‎Allies. The first American soldiers were now in France at the front.‎
That morning the papers reported mostly news of the war including heavy artillery fire on the Western front ‎at Flanders, near German-occupied Belgium.‎

What was the situation in Russia at the time?

The world was torn asunder that Friday morning, November 2, 1917.
A World War which had begun in the summer of 1914 was still pitting ‎the Central Powers—including Germany, Austria-Hungary and the ‎Ottoman Empire (Turkey)—against the Allies led by France, Britain ‎and Russia.
Only seven months earlier, on April 6, had the United ‎States abandoned neutrality and entered the fray on the side of the ‎Allies. The first American soldiers were now in France at the front.‎
That morning the papers reported mostly news of the war, including heavy artillery fire on the Western front ‎at Flanders, near German-occupied Belgium.‎

In the Russian Empire Tzar Nicholas II had been overthrown in March.

In his place was the government of the liberal Alexander Kerensky which had just done well in local ‎elections.

The Allies wanted Russia to keep fighting against the Central Powers.

But by 1917 the country’s resolve to stay in the World War was shattered ‎and anyway, within one week, on November 7, the Bolsheviks (or communists) ‎led by Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky would overthrow Kerensky and Russia would officially pull ‎out of the war.‎

What did the Balfour Declaration say?

It promised that Britain would aid in the creation of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine.

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 endeavors 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.‎

Yours,

(signed) Arthur James Balfour

Who was Arthur James Balfour?

Arthur James Balfour ‎was born in 1848 into a wealthy, well-connected family. His ‎trajectory included Eton and Cambridge and by 1874 he had become a ‎Member of Parliament. He was appointed private secretary to his ‎influential uncle, Lord Salisbury (1830-1903), when the latter was ‎Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. ‎

Had he not entered politics Balfour might have turned to scholarship. ‎In 1879 he wrote Defense of Philosophic Doubt which sought to find ‎a balance between respect for science and religious belief. His health ‎was described as “delicate” and his manner one of languor. Lloyd ‎George once quipped that Balfour’s place in history would be fleeting, ‎‎”just like the scent on a pocket handkerchief.”‎

How was Palestine impacted by WWI?

The First World War erupted on August 1, 1914.  Economic conditions in strategically situated Palestine became dire.  American Zionists organized aid relief for Palestinian Jews some of whom were considered foreign nationals and faced expulsion. Turkey entered the war on October 29, 1914 on the side of the Central Powers. Britain declared war on Turkey on November 5, 1914 with dismemberment of Turkey’s empire a war aim. Ottoman officials reportedly incited Palestinian Arabs to attack Jews.  Turkey viewed Palestinian Jews as a potential threat. Indeed a group of Palestinian Jews organized the NILI espionage ring to aid the British war effort. Many Jews fled to Egypt. In February 1915, an Ottoman attempt to capture the Suez Canal in British-controlled Egypt was pushed back. After hard fighting, British troops captured Beersheba and Gaza in the Fall of 1917. On December 11, 1917 British forces led by General Edmund Allenby captured Jerusalem. The rest of Palestine and the Mideast followed in due course.

Who was Lord Rothschild?

He was a Zionist, naturalist and philanthropist. Born into the Rothschild banking family Lionel Walter Rothschild   (1868-1937) ‎took on the business and civic responsibilities necessitated by his position. He served as a Conservative member of the House of Commons and on the boards of various Jewish communal institutions. His attachment to Zionism was heartfelt and of incalculable value to the movement—yet his greatest passion was reflected in his lifelong commitment to the natural sciences.

What was the Ottoman Empire?

At the time of the Balfour Declaration Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire.

Britain, France and the USA all had an interest in what would happen to the Ottoman Empire after Turkey’s defeat in the World War.

Ottoman Turkey claimed to be a Muslim ‎caliphate; the Sultan was its supreme leader, his political power legitimized by religion.

From the Maghrib, or North Africa, to the Mashriq, the Arab world ‎east of Egypt, there were no sovereign Arab states.

Turkish and Sunni Muslims, the Ottomans had ruled over the Middle East since 1299.

The loyalty of ordinary Arabs, Turks, Persians and ‎Kurds was first and foremost to their immediate family, then to their clan ‎and tribe.

Palestine was divided into several administrative districts.

At the dawn of the 19^th century the Ottoman Empire had extended into Europe to include all or parts of Rumania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, Crete, Albania and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

In 1908 the nationalist Young Turks took charge of the Empire and tried to halt its break-up.

During World War I (including on November 2, 1917 when the Balfour Declaration was issued) the Ottoman Empire was one of the Central Powers at war with the Allies, which included Britain.

What was the nature of Britain's interest in Palestine?

Palestine is where Europe, Asia and Africa meet. It is at the core of the Middle East.

Tsarist Russia, France’s Third Republic and the Kaiser’s Germany all sought a foothold in the region.

A key British strategic interest was the Suez Canal which in 1915 Turkey had tried to capture. Loss of the canal would immensely complicate navigation to British-controlled India.

As they contemplated the inevitable post-war colonial competition ‎with France, Russia and Germany, British strategists—among them T.E. ‎Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia”)—sought, with dubious results ‎beyond the Arabian peninsula, to mobilize Arab chieftains in the Allied ‎war against the Ottoman Turks.

Britain wanted the Arabs to rise up against Ottoman Turkish rule during WWI. A British-inspired Arab Revolt started in June 1916 with attacks on Ottoman ‎garrisons in Arabia. ‎

Who comprised the British Government in 1917?

Prime Minister David Lloyd George (Liberal Party) headed a wartime coalition government that included Foreign Minister Arthur Balfour (Conservative). Other members included Arthur Henderson (Labour), Lord Curzon (Conservative), Leader of the House of Lords; Andrew Bonar Law (Conservative), Chancellor of the Exchequer; and Lord Milner (Conservative), Minister Without Portfolio.

What was the situation in Palestine in November 1917?

The Holy Land during World War I was decidedly not, as the biblical verse has it, “flowing with milk and honey” (Book of Exodus, 3:8)

Palestine was parched and terribly neglected; Jerusalem had no sewer system, few sidewalks and no electricity.

Wartime blockades contributed to food shortages. Locusts ruined what little could be grown.

These conditions were not purely the result of the war.

In fact, little had changed since the American writer Mark Twain visited back in 1867, when he described the country as a “hopeless, dreary, heartbroken land.”

How was the Ottoman Empire defeated?

Back in 1915 an Ottoman attempt to capture the strategic Suez Canal in ‎British-controlled Egypt had been pushed back by the British Army in ‎a key attack now known as the Battle of the Suez Canal. ‎

Britain wanted the Arabs to rise up against Ottoman Turkish rule during WWI.

A British-inspired Arab Revolt started in June 1916 with attacks on Ottoman ‎garrisons in Arabia. ‎

As they contemplated the inevitable post-war colonial competition ‎with France and other powers, British strategists—among them T.E. ‎Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia”)—sought, with dubious results ‎beyond the Arabian peninsula, to mobilize Arab chieftains in the Allied ‎war against the Ottoman Turks. ‎

On November 2, 1917 ‎Beersheba, a desert town in Ottoman-controlled Palestine, was ‎captured by British forces.

On December 11, 1917 General Edmund Allenby, in a demonstrative sign of humility, entered Jerusalem’s Old City on foot through the Jaffa Gate, signifying the capture of the city. In London Prime Minister David Lloyd George heralded the city’s capture as “a Christmas present for the British people.”

The rest of Palestine and the Mideast followed in due course.

In Iraq, Baghdad fell to British forces in March 1918.

By September-October 1918 the Ottomans had been utterly defeated and driven back to Anatolia (or today’s Turkey).

The ‎Central Powers capitulated on November 11, 1918.

What is the Jewish connection to the Land of Israel?

The Zionist dream of returning to Zion is based on the historical and continuous connection of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel.

The Jewish connection to the Land of Israel goes back to the time of Abraham.

The Torah (Pentateuch) records God’s covenants with the Biblical patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (see Genesis chapter 12, for example) giving them and their descendants, the Jewish people, the Land of Israel.  Abraham first exercised this right when purchasing the Cave of the Patriarchs (Genesis chapter 23).  Joshua exercised at a national level during the Israelite conquest of Canaan, circa 1250 BCE, as recorded in the Book of Joshua.

Historical events and prophecies in the Hebrew Bible taking place in the Land of Israel, such as David and Goliath and the messianic teachings of the prophet Isaiah that “nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” were part of human history by the 8^th century BCE.

When the ancient Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar expelled the Jews from the Land of Israel to Babylonia and destroyed the First Temple in Jerusalem in 586 BCE, the Temple Priests, who could no longer serve, composed the famous lament, ”By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.” (Psalm 137:1)

Cyrus, the ruler of Persia— that had become the regional superpower after the decline of Nebuchadnezzar’s empire— allowed the Jewish exiles to make their way back to Jerusalem, circa 516 BCE, to rebuild the Second Temple and establish their Second Commonwealth.

That Temple stood until 70 CE, when the Romans taking advantage of internal Jewish divisions destroyed the Second Temple, murdered hundreds of thousands of Jews and exiled others. These tragedies are commemorated by Jews each year on the fast day of 9 Av in the Jewish calendar.

It is told that Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, when riding past a Paris synagogue in the early 19^th century, was perturbed to hear wailing coming from within. A servant dispatched to investigate reported that the Jews were mourning their Temple, on the Fast of 9 Av. “Temple? Where, when?” demanded the Emperor. “The one in Jerusalem destroyed about 1,800 years ago,” replied the servant. The Emperor stopped in his tracks. Contemplating the remarkable historical memory, he observed, “Any people that can mourn a Temple and Exile for so long will surely one day return home.

A small number of Jews continued to live in the Land. Jews worldwide maintained their religious connections to the Land, through rituals such as the Passover Seder and breaking a glass at a wedding, keeping their connection to the Land at the forefront of their national consciousness.

The Jews’ longing for the Land of Israel is part of our portable memory. Formalised Jewish liturgy from its earliest beginnings states the Jewish longing for the Land several times during daily prayers. A notable example is in the ‘Amidah’ prayer, when both in Israel and the Diaspora, Jews praise God for the Covenants and pray that their, “eyes behold Your (God’s) return in mercy to Zion.”

How does Jewish civilization understand the Covenant?

The covenants between God and the patriarchs are at the heart of Jewish belief. Augmented by the Revelation at Sinai (Exodus chapters 19-20), they give the patriarchs’ descendants the mission to promote monotheism and the right to the Land of Israel.

There are several covenants which the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament), the foundation of Jewish belief, records between God and the Jewish people. The covenants that God made with the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, described in the Book of Genesis, gave them and their descendants the mission to promote monotheism and the right to the Land of Israel.

The national covenant, made with the Jewish people during the Revelation at Mount Sinai as described in the Book of Exodus, consolidated this.  All of these covenants are fundamental elements of Jewish belief and civilization.

When did the Arabs arrive in Palestine?

The Northern Kingdom of Israel (Samaria) was conquered by the Assyrians in 722 BCE.  To the south, Judea and its capital, Jerusalem, remained intact.

In 586 BCE Jerusalem was destroyed and there was a mass deportation to Babylonia.

The Jews were allowed to return starting in 538 BCE.  Later the Second Temple was constructed, the walls of Jerusalem were reconstructed and Ezra read the Torah to the people.

The Greeks became the superpower; after them the Romans.

Following a revolt against Rome the Roman Empire defeated the Jews and forced them into Exile beginning in 70 CE. The Romans were supplanted by Byzantine Christians.

As a result of being defeated by ancient Rome, Jews lost their majority status in Palestine in the first half of the First Century.

In 638 CE, six years after the death in Arabia of Islam’s founding prophet Muhammad, his followers from Arabia subjugated Jerusalem. They prayed in Jerusalem facing Mecca—the holiest city in Islam.

The Umayyad Arab dynasty ruled Palestine from Damascus. They built the beautiful Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount. The Abbasid Arab Dynasty ruled Palestine from Baghdad. Islamic tradition holds that both Jews and Christians broke their Covenant with God and corrupted his Scripture.

Islamic tradition holds that only Allah’s Covenant with Muhammad is true and complete.

Next, in 1099, the Christian Crusaders came.

Then in 1187, Saladin, who was of Muslim, Sunni and Kurdish origin, led a counter-crusade and took the city.

After that came the Khwarizmis, who were Persian Sunnis. And so it went on…

Finally in 1516 Eretz Israel was conquered by the Turks—the Sunni Muslim Ottomans.

The Arabs of Palestine saw themselves as descended from the Arabs of Arabia who had conquered the country hundreds of years earlier.

By the 1800s the Arabs naturally thought of themselves as indigenous, having lived in the country for centuries.

Still, the Arabs of Palestine never established an independent polity. There was never an Arab country called Palestine.

Palestinian Arab national identity was a post-WWI development, partly a response to the Zionist movement and an element of the overall post-WWI Arab Awakening.

Until after the creation of Israel in 1948 most mentions in the newspapers of “Palestinians” referred to Jews.

The local English-language Zionist newspaper, founded in 1932, was called “The Palestine Post.”

Who was Arthur James Balfour?

Arthur James Balfour ‎was born in 1848 into a wealthy, well-connected family. His ‎trajectory included Eton and Cambridge and by 1874 he had become a ‎Member of Parliament. He was appointed private secretary to his ‎influential uncle, Lord Salisbury (1830-1903), when the latter was ‎Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. ‎

Had he not entered politics Balfour might have turned to scholarship. ‎In 1879 he wrote Defense of Philosophic Doubt which sought to find ‎a balance between respect for science and religious belief. His health ‎was described as “delicate” and his manner one of languor. Lloyd ‎George once quipped that Balfour’s place in history would be fleeting, ‎‎”just like the scent on a pocket handkerchief.”‎

Was the Balfour Declaration a colonial statement?

How did the Arabs respond to Jewish immigration?

The earliest manifestation of Arab opposition to modern political Zionism can perhaps be traced back to 1891. Arab and Muslim leaders petitioned the ruling Ottoman Sultan to stop Jewish immigration and forbid the sale of land—even wasteland—to Jewish people.

Anti-Zionist societies and newspapers were created in Cairo, Jerusalem and other places. Newly established Jewish communities—or settlements—were attacked by Arab bands starting in 1886. The Ottomans also deported many Jews.

Theodor Herzl’s efforts to persuade Sultan Abdul Hamid II to back the Zionist enterprise came to nothing— though as late as 1915 Turkey reportedly flirted with the idea of selling some of Palestine to the Zionist movement for the creation of a Jewish homeland.

What motivated anti-Zionism among the Arabs?

Actually, the most vocal early Arab opponents to Zionism were not motivated by Islam.

George Antonius (1891-1942), born into a Lebanese Christian family and influenced by Western ideas of nationalism, declared the Mideast the exclusive provenance of the Arabs on the grounds that they shared racial, cultural and linguistic bonds.

One of the first Arab nationalists and author of The Arab Awakening, Antonius envisioned creating an Arab state that would encompass Palestine.

In their encounter with Western modernity the Arabs first tried Arab nationalism and pan-Arabism.

In the 21^st century, by contrast, the Arab world has been mobilized more by political Islam and pan-Islam.

What was the Arab attitude to non-Muslim sovereignty?

Historically, Islamic civilization regarded Christians and Jews as “People of the Book.” Islamic tradition holds that both Jews and Christians broke their Covenant with God and corrupted His Scripture. Therefore, they believe, only Allah’s Covenant with Muhammad is true and complete.

Jews and Christians were granted dhimmi or protective second-class status under Islam.

Jews often had to pay tribute or a special poll tax; they were forbidden to carry arms. They often had to wear special clothes to distinguish them from the majority population. They had to show deference to Muslims. But within those parameters and in contrast to European Christian civilization, Jews did have religio-legal recourse.

Indeed, though there were also dark times, there were golden periods of Jewish life in Muslim civilization.

So long as Jews or Christians submitted to Muslim sovereignty they could be tolerated and even thrive.

These realities were in place when political Zionism came on the scene.

The idea of a sovereign Jewish State in the Middle East was—and is—anathema because it implies a challenge to Muslim religious preeminence.

None of the 22 member states of the Arab League or the 57 member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation has recognized Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. To do that would imply permanent acceptance of Israel’s existence in Dar al-Islam—literally, “the home of Islam,” or the Middle East. Treaties and truces are permitted.

Where did Jews migrate from to Palestine, and why?

Jews lost their majority status in Palestine in the first half of the 1st century as a result of being defeated by ancient Rome.

Yet throughout the ages there was almost always a remnant minority Jewish community in Palestine.

In Jerusalem Jews were already a majority in 1844.

When the first Zionist settlers arrived from Eastern Europe and from Yemen in Arabia around 1882 they found ultra-Orthodox Jews whose community was known as the old Yishuv  already in Jerusalem. These included Sephardi Ladino-speaking and European Hassidic Jews.

By 1855 Sir Moses Montefiore had bought land to enable the resettlement of a small number of Jews.

The second wave of settlement (“Aliyah”), mostly from the Russian Empire, took place between 1904 and 1914 (before WWI).

A Third Aliyah came between 1919 and 1923 mostly from Russia, Poland, Rumania and Lithuania. Then came a Fourth Aliyah between 1924 and1928 mainly from Poland, the USSR, Rumania and Lithuania, but also from Yemen and Iraq. And, finally, the Fifth Aliyah from Central Europe, including Germany, took place between 1929 and 1939 (the year WWII and began).

After that, until the State of Israel was established in 1948 virtually all Jewish immigration was considered illegal and blocked by Britain.

What did the Balfour Declaration say?

It promised that Britain would aid in the creation of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine.

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 endeavors 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.‎

‎Yours,

(signed) Arthur James Balfour

What is Zionism?

Zionism is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people. It is the belief in the Jewish people’s inalienable right to self-determination in their ancient homeland.

The Zionist campaign for a return to Palestine was articulated by Theodor Herzl and approved at the first Zionist Congress in 1897.

The Zionist idea, though, goes back thousands of years.

“Zion” was another name for Jerusalem.

It was first used in the Bible in the Second Book of Samuel (4:7): “Nevertheless, David took the stronghold of Zion; the same is the city of David.”

At the time of the Balfour Declaration Zionists were Jews who wanted to return to Eretz Israel—the Land of Israel.  The Book of Exodus (15:14) also refers to the country, or part of it, as Philistia, which sounds like Palestine.

Who was Theodor Herzl?

Theodor Herzl (1860-1904) was the founder of modern political Zionism.

He famously said: “If you will it, it is no dream.”

Herzl is the architect of modern political Zionism, the visionary who—recalling the biblical and historic Covenant of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel—developed a blueprint for reestablishing the Jewish commonwealth.

Elegant and aristocratic in demeanour, Herzl became the founding diplomat and chief statesman of the Zionist movement who tirelessly lobbied presidents, kings and popes to secure support for the idea of a Jewish homeland.

He died of a heart attack at age 44.

What was the Zionist Congress?

The First Zionist Congress, organized by Theodor Herzl (1860-1904), was held in Basel, Switzerland, in 1897.

The aim of Herzl’s political Zionism, the delegates agreed, “is to create for the Jewish people a home in Eretz Israel secured by law.”

Thus the Balfour Declaration—issued by the superpower of the day and later achieving the imprimatur of the international community—significantly bolstered the practical and legal efforts initiated by the Jews themselves to establish a homeland in Palestine.

What was the situation for Jews in 1897?

For Jewish subjects of the Ottoman Empire the situation was mixed. In Turkey proper there was an ambience of tolerance and Jews were permitted to work in virtually any field.

For Jews in the Empire’s Arab, Kurdish and Persian areas life could sometimes be grim. In greater Tripolitania, Libya, Arab mobs destroyed the synagogue in 1897.  In general Jews were treated as dhimmi or second-class citizens. Many communities lived in fear for their security. They faced harassment and knew that local authorities would turn a blind eye even when Jews were killed in the streets.

Elsewhere throughout the immense Tzarist Empire—which included Russia’s vast expanse, Ukraine, most of Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia and Poland—Christian hatred and persecution of the Jews was institutionalized and regime-fueled.

In Western Europe Jews had been ostensibly emancipated—given the rights of citizenship. For example, in 1791 Jews were given equal rights in France.

In practice even in countries where Jews were permitted to acculturate or blend in they faced continued anti-Semitism—as demonstrated by the Dreyfus Affair (1894-1906), the trial of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, an assimilated French Jew who was court-martial on trumped-up charges of espionage.

Dreyfus was about as “un-Jewish” and ostentatiously French as could be imagined. Yet that did not stop the crowds outside the courtroom baying “Down with the Jews!” Theodor Herzl was a journalist who covered the trial; it convinced him of the absolute need for the Jews to have their own homeland.

What was the Ottoman Empire?

Ottoman Turkey claimed to be a Muslim ‎caliphate; the Sultan was its supreme leader, his political power legitimized by religion.

From the Maghrib, or North Africa, to the Mashriq, the Arab world ‎east of Egypt, there were no sovereign Arab states.

Turkish and Sunni Muslims, the Ottomans had ruled over the Middle East since 1299.

The loyalty of ordinary Arabs, Turks, Persians and ‎Kurds was first and foremost to their immediate family, then to their clan ‎and tribe.

Palestine was divided into several administrative districts.

At the dawn of the 19^th century the Ottoman Empire had extended into Europe to include all or parts of Rumania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, Crete, Albania and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

In 1908 the nationalist Young Turks took charge of the Empire and tried to halt its break-up.

During World War I (including on November 2, 1917 when the Balfour Declaration was issued) the Ottoman Empire was one of the Central Powers at war with the Allies, which included Britain.

Who was Chaim Weizmann?

In 1917 Chaim Weizmann (1874-1952) was the indefatigable leader of the Zionist lobby.

The campaign for a declaration was led by Weizmann. His scientific work at Manchester University brought him into contact with Arthur Balfour.

Years later he would become the first President of the State of Israel.

Weizmann led the Zionist movement away from neutrality in the Great War (WWI) and towards a consistent pro-Allied, pro-British stance.

Born in the Russian Empire, Weizmann immigrated to Britain in 1904 and ‎was appointed lecturer in chemistry at Manchester University.

When did Chaim Weizmann meet Arthur Balfour?

Arthur James Balfour and Chaim Weizmann first met in 1906 and hit it off. Balfour was keenly interested in the Zionist idea.

The relationship ‎lapsed but was renewed in 1914.

At that first meeting in Manchester in 1906 Weizmann wrote to his wife Vera saying that a mutual friend, Charles Dreyfus, had made their now-historic introduction.

What was the role of the Manchester School of Zionism?

Between 1904 and1916, Chaim Weizmann’s campaign was immeasurably aided by a cohort of talented and dedicated Zionist Mancunians.

Among them were Lord Simon Marks, Harry Sacher, Leon Simon and Israel and Rebecca Sieff.

Together they opened many doors and facilitated numerous contacts with British officialdom and opinion formulators, while also serving as a brain trust.

What was Chaim Weizmann's role in the war effort?

When World War I erupted in August 1914 Weizmann, now 40 years of age, was established in his academic career.

As head of the British Admiralty Laboratories from 1917 to 1919 he was engaged in scientific work for the war effort, inventing a method to ‎produce the synthetic acetone used to create cordite, a military propellant.

Which states was Britain battling in the Great War?

The world was torn asunder that Friday morning, November 2, 1917.

A World War which had begun in the summer of 1914 was still pitting ‎the Central Powers—including Germany, Austria-Hungary and the ‎Ottoman Empire (Turkey)—against the Allies led by France, Britain ‎and Russia.

Only seven months earlier, on April 6, had the United ‎States abandoned neutrality and entered the fray on the side of the ‎Allies. The first American soldiers were now in France at the front.‎

That morning the papers reported mostly news of the war, including heavy artillery fire on the Western front ‎at Flanders, near German-occupied Belgium.‎

Which members of the War Cabinet supported Zionism?

Many members of the wartime Cabinet were sympathetic to or supportive of Zionism and this created the right climate for the Balfour Declaration to be proposed.

The Zionists were supported first and foremost by Prime Minister David Lloyd George and Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour (an honorary member of the War Cabinet).

Lord Milner, too, was supportive.

Lord Curzon, for his part, was unenthusiastic.

One key opponent, Edwin Montagu, was not formally a member of the streamlined War Cabinet.

Why did Zionism appeal to members of the War Cabinet?

The Cabinet’s decision to go with the pro-Zionist camp was the result ‎of a confluence of factors. ‎

For one, there was compassion for persecuted Jewry.

Back in 1840, ‎prompted by the Christian Zionism of the young Lord Shaftesbury, the ‎then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Lord Palmerston, instructed ‎the British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire to encourage the Sultan ‎to allow Jews to resettle in Palestine. Shaftesbury’s hope was that they ‎would in due course embrace Christianity.‎

In 1903 Joseph Chamberlain, then Secretary of State for the Colonies, ‎floated the idea of finding the Jews a homeland somewhere in East ‎Africa or in the Sinai Peninsula at El Arish. ‎

Balfour believed that the Christian world owed Jewish civilization a ‎moral debt for centuries of persecution and ‎contempt. Adding to the atmosphere was George Eliot’s 1876 novel “Daniel ‎Deronda,” which raised the idea of restoring Palestine to the Jews.

Back in 1833 ‎Benjamin Disraeli had written The Wondrous Tale of Alroy, set partly in ‎Jerusalem, about a young Jewish man trying to survive in a non-Jewish ‎world. Disraeli’s father converted to Christianity when Benjamin was 12 years old.  Disraeli was Prime Minister of Britain from 1874 until 1880.

Balfour envisaged that at the end of the day those Jews who could ‎not or would not fully assimilate in their countries would move to their ‎national home. This was more or less Herzl’s vision too.‎

How did the Government perceive Jewish influence?

The British leadership had a rather inflated view of ‎Jewish influence. It imagined Jews— irrespective ‎of whether they were Russian, American or German—as a unified collective that could be ‎used to further British interests.

The Zionist leaders in London did ‎nothing to disabuse the British of this belief. ‎

Up until the World War, those leaders had simply hedged their bets. The ‎movement sought to sway any leader—from the Turkish Sultan to the ‎German Kaiser, and from the British Prime Minister to the Catholic ‎Pope—who would lend an ear to support the restoration of the Jews ‎to Palestine.‎

So it was that Britain hoped the Jews could help with the war ‎effort. London needed Russia to stay in the Great War and the US ‎to accelerate its military involvement in the fighting. But Russia’s Kerensky despite his Jewish-sounding name was actually Russian Orthodox. The revolutionary Leon Trotsky was Jewish though certainly no Zionist.

President Wilson had nominated Louis Brandeis (who was ‎indeed a Zionist) to the US Supreme Court in 1916. Another Zionist, ‎Felix Frankfurter (later also a member of the US Supreme Court), ‎worked in the War Department and elsewhere in the Wilson ‎administration.‎ At the end of the day Woodrow Wilson signaled that he would ‎welcome a Jewish homeland declaration by Britain. ‎

Asked later about the Balfour Declaration, Lloyd George would make ‎the case that the Zionist movement was “exceptionally strong in Russia ‎and America.”‎

When did Chaim Weizmann meet Arthur Balfour?

Arthur James Balfour and Chaim Weizmann first met in 1906 and hit it off. Balfour was keenly interested in the Zionist idea.

The relationship ‎lapsed but was renewed in 1914.

At that first meeting in Manchester in 1906 Weizmann wrote to his wife Vera saying that a mutual friend, Charles Dreyfus, had made their now-historic introduction.

When did the USA enter World War I?

The world was torn asunder that Friday morning, November 2, 1917.

A World War which had begun in the summer of 1914 was still pitting ‎the Central Powers—including Germany, Austria-Hungary and the ‎Ottoman Empire (Turkey)—against the Allies led by France, Britain ‎and Russia.

Only seven months earlier, on April 6, had the United ‎States abandoned neutrality and entered the fray on the side of the ‎Allies. The first American soldiers were now in France at the front.‎

That morning the papers reported mostly news of the war, including heavy artillery fire on the Western front ‎at Flanders, near German-occupied Belgium.‎

What was the War Cabinet?

When David Lloyd George succeeded Herbert Henry Asquith as Prime Minister in December 1916 the Great War (WWI) was raging. Lloyd George wanted a streamlined decision-making body for his coalition government so he created a War Cabinet that consisted of himself (Liberal), Andrew Bonar Law (Conservative), Lord Curzon (Conservative), Lord Milner (Conservative) and Arthur Henderson (Labour).

Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour was not formally a member of the War Cabinet. But given his stature as an elder statesman he attended meetings and his counsel was much valued.

Who submitted letters supporting a Declaration?

On October 6, 1917 the War Cabinet decided to send out the latest ‎draft text to eight Jews, four anti-Zionists and four Zionists, for ‎comment.

The cover letter acknowledged that “in view of the ‎divergence of opinion expressed on the subject by the Jews ‎themselves,” the Government “would like to receive in writing the ‎views of representative Jewish leaders, both Zionists and non-Zionists.”‎

Letters of support were submitted by Chief Rabbi Joseph Hertz, Lord Walter Rothschild and Zionist leaders Nahum Sokolow and Chaim Weizmann. ‎

Who wrote letters against a Declaration?

The anti-Zionist case was made, also in separate letters, by Leonard ‎Cohen of the Jewish Board of Guardians, MP Philip Magnus, president ‎of the Anglo-Jewish Association, Claude Montefiore and newly elected ‎president of the Board of Deputies, Stuart Samuel.‎

They argued that the Jews were solely a religious community. Opponents of a Declaration ‎were concerned that the Jewish nationalism inherent in Zionism would raise doubts about their ‎own loyalty to the Crown.

One of the two Jewish ministers in Lloyd George’s ‎Cabinet, the Liberal Party’s Edwin Montagu (1879- 1924) who was Secretary of State for India, ‎had long been making the anti-Zionist case.

His cousin and fellow cabinet member—also a Liberal—Herbert Samuel (1870-1963) not only supported ‎Zionism but within months of the outbreak of the World War ‎presented the cabinet with a memorandum on ‎the benefits of a British ‎protectorate for Palestine to support Jewish immigration.‎

How was the Balfour Declaration drafted?

On June 13, 1917 Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour met with Lord Walter Rothschild, leader of the British Jewish community, and Zionist statesman Chaim Weizmann and suggested they submit a draft document encapsulating their hopes for Palestine that he could submit for Cabinet discussion.

There was also considerable input by Nahum Sokolow, an official of the international Zionist movement.‎

The formula that the Zionists preferred was ‎submitted by Rothschild to Balfour on July 18, 1917.

Prime Minister David Lloyd George’s government debated the wisdom of making any commitment to the Zionists but ultimately decided to move ahead.

There was a great deal of to and fro ‎over the letter’s wording.

Ultimately the phraseology was crafted so as to promote a national home for ‎the Jews in Palestine while protecting the political status of Jewish ‎people who would never move there; and, at the same time, to ensure ‎that Arab civil and religious rights would not be prejudiced in the ‎Jewish homeland. ‎

What did the Balfour Declaration say?

It promised that Britain would aid in the creation of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine.

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 endeavors 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.‎

Yours,

(signed) Arthur James Balfour

What was happening in the world on November 2, 1917?

The momentous news came too late to ‎make it into the morning newspapers that day.

And when it came the story hardly made a big splash.  There was a war going on with fierce fighting in Belgium.

Also the Bolsheviks had captured Estonia on November 5.

And on November 7 British forces captured the Strip in the Third Battle for Gaza.

Only a week later, on November 9, 1917 a terse dispatch on the ‎Declaration headlined “Britain Favors Zionism” appeared in The New ‎York Times. The newspaper and its German-Jewish owners were ‎unsympathetic to the Zionist cause. Citing Balfour’s letter, the New ‎York City paper referred to a London Jewish Chronicle commentary that spoke ‎of an end to Jewish exile. ‎

The Daily Express—then owned by Lord Beaverbrook—ran the story, also on November 9, under the more expansive headline: “A State for ‎the Jews.”

The Times of London headline read: “Palestine for the ‎Jews. Official sympathy.”

What was the reaction to the Balfour Declaration?

In his autobiography Trial and Error Weizmann relates: “While the ‎Cabinet was in session, approving the final text, I was outside… Sykes ‎brought the document out to me, with the exclamation: ‘Dr Weizmann, ‎it’s a boy!’ Well—I did not like the boy at first. He was not the one I ‎had expected.” ‎

But like Lord Walter Rothschild Weizmann knew that delaying the Declaration in order to ‎get more perfect wording would have played into the hands of the ‎anti-Zionist Jews—and in the end there would have been no ‎Declaration at all.‎

‎”A new chapter had opened for us,” Weizmann wrote—“full of new ‎difficulties, but not without its great moments.”‎

The Declaration was not published in the press until November 9th, a week after it was issued. The government intended that the declaration should not be made public “until a favourable military situation had been brought about in Palestine”. This was known by November 8th. Since this was a Thursday, the news was delayed until the next day, a Friday, when it could be revealed in the Jewish Chronicle.

Arab reaction to the Balfour Declaration was mixed.

The Zionist leaders ‎had hoped to win Arab support for the restoration of the Jews to ‎Palestine. They saw a win-win situation that would benefit Jews and ‎Arabs alike.

Two Arab representatives attended a Zionist celebratory ‎meeting of the Balfour Declaration in London’s Covent Garden on December 2, 1917. ‎

What did the Balfour Declaration say? 

It promised that Britain would aid in the creation of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine.

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 endeavors 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.‎

Yours,

(signed) Arthur James Balfour

What was the Ottoman Empire?

Ottoman Turkey claimed to be a Muslim ‎caliphate; the Sultan was its supreme leader, his political power legitimized by religion.

From the Maghrib, or North Africa, to the Mashriq, the Arab world ‎east of Egypt, there were no sovereign Arab states.

Turkish and Sunni Muslims, the Ottomans had ruled over the Middle East since 1299.

The loyalty of ordinary Arabs, Turks, Persians and ‎Kurds was first and foremost to their immediate family, then to their clan ‎and tribe.

Palestine was divided into several administrative districts.

At the dawn of the 19^th century the Ottoman Empire had extended into Europe to include all or parts of Rumania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, Crete, Albania and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

In 1908 the nationalist Young Turks took charge of the Empire and tried to halt its break-up.

During World War I (including on November 2, 1917 when the Balfour Declaration was issued) the Ottoman Empire was one of the Central Powers at war with the Allies, which included Britain.

What was the nature of Britain's interest in Palestine?

Palestine is where Europe, Asia and Africa meet. It is at the core of the Middle East.

Back in 1915, an Ottoman attempt to capture the strategic Suez Canal in ‎British-controlled Egypt was pushed back by the British Army in ‎a key attack now known as the Battle of the Suez Canal. ‎

Britain wanted the Arabs to rise up against Ottoman Turkish rule during WWI.

A British-inspired Arab Revolt started in June 1916 with attacks on Ottoman ‎garrisons in Arabia. ‎

As they contemplated the inevitable post-war colonial competition ‎with France and other powers, British strategists—among them T.E. ‎Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia”)—sought, with dubious results ‎beyond the Arabian peninsula, to mobilize Arab chieftains in the Allied ‎war against the Ottoman Turks. ‎

Where did most Jews live in 1917?

The Jewish people were dispersed across many lands. In 1914 most of the world’s Jews were subjects of the Russian Tsar.

They lived in a western region of Tsarist Russia known as the Pale of Settlement. Areas outside the Pale were barred to Jews unless they obtained special permission.

From the 1880s approximately 2 million Jews fled west as a result of violent attacks in southern Russia known as pogroms, religious persecution, and worsening economic conditions. A quarter of a million Jewish immigrants arrived in the USA in 1913 and 1914 alone.

Over a million Jews lived in Western and Central Europe where they enjoyed varying degrees of tolerance.

Berlin, Vienna and Budapest were amongst the largest Jewish communities. But even here a new form of Jew-hatred was growing – racial anti-Semitism.

A million Jews also lived in the Arab world, from Morocco to Iraq. There were also thousands of Jews in non-Arab Muslim countries including Iran, Turkey, and Afghanistan. These ancient Middle Eastern communities were traditionally subjected to special taxes and restrictions.

The Jewish population in Palestine, then a province in the Ottoman Turkish Empire, numbered approximately 75,000.

Jews formed the majority in Jerusalem.

How did WWI impact on the Jews in Eastern Europe?

The Balfour Declaration was issued at a time of tremendous turmoil in Russia caused by the war and increasing revolutionary activity.

Even in the context of the Great War, the situation of Jewish civilians was dire. Many of the pitched battles of the Eastern front were fought in regions of dense Jewish population. Jews suffered added horrors of exceptionally brutal anti-Semitic action by the Russian army. They were subjected to mass expulsions from their homes into the interior, to field courts-martial and summary executions, and the taking of hostages as guarantees of satisfactory behaviour.

Sporadic pogroms by Cossacks were not uncommon.

Even the Tsarist Government feared the army’s severe treatment of the Jews was harming Russia’s international standing.

The outbreak of war cut off the escape routes by which Jews had previously fled to the West. The fall of the Tsar in March 1917 was welcomed but freedom proved to be short lived.

The Bolshevik Revolution in November 1917 was followed by bloody civil war.

Within three years over 100,000 Jews were murdered in Ukraine by counter-revolutionary forces. The Bolsheviks, who emerged victorious in the civil war, shut down synagogues and other community organisations.

The Zionist movement was again driven underground.

What was life like in the Pale of Settlement?

The ancient town of Skyrva in the Ukraine was the birthplace of Asher Ginsberg (Ahad Ha’am), a leading Hebrew writer and cultural Zionist, who was close to Chaim Weizmann during the negotiation of the Balfour Declaration.

After Skvyra was included in the Pale of Settlement the town’s Jewish community grew to 9,000 in 1897 – approximately half of the town’s population. At the end of the 19th century Skvyra had seven synagogues.
There were two pogroms in the town in 1917 and six in 1919, some of which lasted for several weeks. There were rapes, houses were burnt down, and Jewish property was seized and destroyed.
Some 191 people were killed and hundreds injured.

In the 1920s the Jewish relief charity JDA reported it was assisting the following pogrom victims in the town and surrounding region: Jewish Widows 250; Orphans 256; Half-Orphans 350; Individuals who lost their working ability 130.

Under the Soviet Union the religious and communal life of the Jews of Skvyra was dissolved.

In World War II German forces entered the town in September 1941. On 20 September 1941, 850 Jews were shot in Skvyra. A few days later, over 140 more were executed and deportations followed.

Today there are fewer than 100 Jews in the town and one synagogue has recently been renovated.

How did Jews around the world greet the Declaration?

During the Sabbath service at Belfast synagogue following the Declaration’s publication the community passed a resolution thanking the British government – the only time in the community’s history that a political resolution was passed during a Sabbath service.

Similar support  was expressed by Jewish communities across the UK and much further afield.

In Russia the Declaration contributed to an overwhelming Zionist success in the election to the All-Russian Constituent Assembly.

At a thanksgiving held at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Lord Samuel summed up the mood: “I see in my mind’s eye those millions in Eastern Europe, all through the centuries,  crowded, cramped, proscribed,  bent with oppression, suffering all the miseries of active minds denied scope, of talent not allowed to speak, of genius that cannot act…Next year in Jerusalem!”

The declaration spurred an extraordinary increase in supporters of American Zionism.

In Jerusalem the first anniversary of the Declaration in November 1918 was celebrated by a Jewish parade in the city – now under British rule – and in the evening  there was dancing and singing.

What was the Zionist Congress?

The First Zionist Congress, organized by Theodor Herzl (1860-1904), was held in Basle, Switzerland, in 1897.

The aim of Herzl’s political Zionism, the delegates agreed, “is to create for the Jewish people a home in Eretz Israel secured by law.”

Thus the Balfour Declaration—issued by the superpower of the day and later achieving the imprimatur of the international community—significantly bolstered the practical and legal efforts initiated by the Jews themselves to establish a homeland in Palestine.

What was the McMahon–Hussein correspondence?

In talks between the British High Commissioner in Egypt, Sir Henry ‎MacMahon, and Hussein ibn Ali al-Hashimi, the Hashemite ruler who ‎had declared himself Sharif of Mecca, Britain promised to back ‎Arab independence in Arabia.

The context of the British pledge was London’s competition with France over spheres of influence in the Middle East.

Crucially, no reference was made to Palestine.

At the post-WWI Paris Peace Conference in ‎‎1919 Hussein and his son Feisal did not so much as suggest that ‎MacMahon had promised Palestine for the Arabs.‎

What was the Sykes-Picot Agreement?

In ‎May 1916 Sir Mark Sykes of Britain and François Georges-Picot of ‎France had broadly arranged how the powers would divide the Mideast ‎once Ottoman Turkey was defeated in the Great War (WWI).

The secret Sykes-Picot Agreement ‎would later be leaked by communist Russia. ‎

When the Zionists belatedly learned of the deal in 1917 they opposed it because Eretz Israel (Palestine) was to be divided with France controlling Galilee and Britain the Haifa area; Jerusalem would be under international control.

In the event Britain, and not France, liberated Palestine and took charge there with the endorsement of the international community.

What was the Arab Revolt?

Back in 1915, an Ottoman attempt to capture the strategic Suez Canal in ‎British-controlled Egypt had been pushed back by the British Army in ‎a key attack now known as the Battle of the Suez Canal. ‎

Britain wanted the Arabs to rise up against Ottoman Turkish rule during WWI.

A British-inspired Arab Revolt started in June 1916 with attacks on Ottoman ‎garrisons in Arabia. ‎

As they contemplated the inevitable post-war colonial competition ‎with France and other powers, British strategists—among them T.E. ‎Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia”)—sought, with dubious results ‎beyond the Arabian peninsula, to mobilize Arab chieftains in the Allied ‎war against the Ottoman Turks. ‎

On October 31, 1917 ‎Beersheba, a desert town in Ottoman-controlled Palestine, was ‎captured by British forces.

On December 11, 1917 General Edmund Allenby demonstratively, as a sign of humility, entered Jerusalem’s Old City on foot through the Jaffa Gate, signifying the capture of the city. In London Prime Minister David Lloyd George heralded the city’s capture as “a Christmas present for the British people.”

What was the place of minorities in the region?

Historically, Islamic civilization regarded Christians and Jews as “People of the Book.” Islamic tradition holds that both Jews and Christians broke their Covenant with God and corrupted His Scripture. Therefore, they believe, only Allah’s Covenant with Muhammad is true and complete.

Jews and Christians were granted dhimmi or protective second-class status under Islam.

Jews often had to pay tribute or a special poll tax; they were forbidden to carry arms. They often had to wear special clothes to distinguish them from the majority population. They had to show deference to Muslims. But within those parameters and in contrast to European Christian civilization, Jews did have religio-legal recourse.

Indeed, though there were also dark times, there were golden periods of Jewish life in Muslim civilization.

So long as Jews or Christians submitted to Muslim sovereignty they could be tolerated and even thrive.

These realities were in place when political Zionism came on the scene.

The idea of a sovereign Jewish State in the Middle East was—and is—anathema because it implies a challenge to Muslim religious preeminence.

None of the 22 member states of the Arab League or the 57 member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation has recognized Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. To do that would imply permanent acceptance of Israel’s existence in Dar al-Islam—literally, “the home of Islam,” or the Middle East. Treaties and truces are permitted.

Why did Britain foster Arab nationalism?

Britain wanted to encourage incipient Arab nationalism so that the Arabs would rise up against Ottoman Turkish rule during WWI.

Nation state sovereignty was a construct of Western international law.

Ottoman Turkey claimed to be a Muslim caliphate; the Sultan was its supreme leader, his political power legitimized by religion.

The loyalty of ordinary Arabs, Turks, Persians, Berbers and Kurds was first and foremost to their immediate family, then to clan and tribe.

The Ottomans had ruled over the Middle East since 1299—and from the Maghreb (or North Africa) to the Mashriq (the Arab world east of Egypt) there were no sovereign Arab states.

The first glimmers of Arab nationalism in opposition to the Ottoman Turks might be traceable to Negib Azouri (1870–1916), a Lebanese Maronite Christian who, writing in Paris in 1905, proposed the creation of a pan-Arab state— rooted in race and language—to stretch from the “Tigris and the Euphrates to the Suez and from the Mediterranean to the Arabian Sea.”

Did the Arabs reject outright the Jewish homeland idea?

The Arabs did not reject outright the Idea of a Jewish state. Not at first.

Arab reaction to the Balfour Declaration was mixed.

The Zionist leaders ‎had hoped to win Arab support for the restoration of the Jews to ‎Palestine. They saw a win-win situation that would benefit Jews and ‎Arabs alike.

Two Arab representatives attended a Zionist celebratory ‎meeting of the Balfour Declaration in London’s Covent Garden on December 2, 1917. ‎

Did the Zionists reach out to Arab leaders?

In May 1918, under British tutelage, Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann met the Emir Feisal—the single recognized Arab leader at the time— in the Red ‎Sea port of Aqaba where they exchanged letters of mutual support. ‎With T.E. ‎Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia”) as a middleman, the two continued with a series of ‎meetings that led to a January 3, 1919 memorandum in which Feisal ‎endorsed the Balfour Declaration. ‎

On March 3, 1919 Feisal wrote to US Zionist leader Felix Frankfurter expressing sympathy ‎for the Zionist movement. “We are working together for a reformed ‎and revived Middle East, and our two movements complete one ‎another. The Jewish movement is national not imperialist, and there is ‎room in Syria [thinking of Palestine as part of a Greater Syria— where for ‎a short time the Hashemite’s clan would hold the throne] for us both.”

Feisal added, “I ‎think that neither can be a real success without the other.”‎

But over time all such Arab advocates for accommodation with Zionism were ‎silenced and shunted aside.

How was Balfour received in Palestine?

Some eight years after the Balfour Declaration was issued Arthur Balfour visited Palestine for the first time on April 1, 1925, when he was 77.

The occasion was the official opening of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Palestinian Jews were delighted that he had undertaken the journey.

Present to greet him on Mount Scopus were scores of dignitaries, among them Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann and Palestine’s Chief Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Kook.

But Arab shops closed in protest.

Driving on to Damascus Balfour was met by 6,000 Arabs demonstrating outside his hotel.

What was happening in the world on 2nd November, 1917?

The world was torn asunder that Friday morning, November 2, 1917.

A World War which had begun in the summer of 1914 was still pitting ‎the Central Powers—including Germany, Austria-Hungary and the ‎Ottoman Empire (Turkey)—against the Allies led by France, Britain ‎and Russia.

Only seven months earlier, on April 6, had the United ‎States abandoned neutrality and entered the fray on the side of the ‎Allies. The first American soldiers were now in France at the front.‎

That morning the papers reported mostly news of the war, including heavy artillery fire on the Western front ‎at Flanders, near German-occupied Belgium.‎

What was the nature of Britain's interest in Palestine?

Palestine is where Europe, Asia and Africa meet. It is at the core of the Middle East.

Back in 1915, an Ottoman attempt to capture the strategic Suez Canal in ‎British-controlled Egypt was pushed back by the British Army in ‎a key attack now known as the Battle of the Suez Canal. ‎

Britain wanted the Arabs to rise up against Ottoman Turkish rule during WWI.

A British-inspired Arab Revolt started in June 1916 with attacks on Ottoman ‎garrisons in Arabia. ‎

As they contemplated the inevitable post-war colonial competition ‎with France and other powers, British strategists—among them T.E. ‎Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia”)—sought, with dubious results ‎beyond the Arabian peninsula, to mobilize Arab chieftains in the Allied ‎war against the Ottoman Turks. ‎

Was the Declaration sanctioned by international law?

The Balfour Declaration itself had no legal effect. However it became part of international law at the 1920 San Remo conference where Britain was given a Mandate to administer Palestine and was required to implement the Balfour Declaration.

The Balfour Declaration was given effect by international law and received express sanction by international agreement.

Around 1918, with the end of the World War, statesmen and legal scholars ‎went to work on rebuilding the shattered international political ‎system. Besides the terrible toll in human life (17 million dead and ‎‎20 million wounded) and treasure, the war resulted in empires ‎‎(including the Ottoman) being vanquished.

There was a need for a new ‎international political order. Who would control territories whose inhabitants had not ruled over themselves for many centuries—or not at all?

In 1919 victors and vanquished gathered in Paris for the Versailles ‎Peace Conference; among them British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, his Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon and British elder statesman Arthur Balfour, along with US President Woodrow Wilson and his Secretary of State ‎Robert Lansing.

What was the San Remo Conference?

Britain’s Mandate for Palestine was granted in 1920 at the San Remo ‎Conference in Italy and ratified by the 52 League of Nations ‎governments on July 24, 1922.

The US was not a member of the ‎League but the Congress passed a resolution supporting the Balfour ‎Declaration in 1922.

Notably, the Mandate for Palestine explicitly ‎required Britain to implement the Balfour Declaration. ‎

In addition to Palestine, Britain was given responsibility for Iraq. ‎

France was granted the Mandate for Syria and Lebanon.

The idea, ‎naive in retrospect, was that civilized nations could sensibly resolve ‎their differences while simultaneously guiding people living under ‎their Mandate—most of whom had never had nation states of their own— to stand by themselves in the modern world.

The international naivety of the day arguably reached a crescendo in 1928 with the Kellogg–Briand Pact ‎under which most countries decided to prohibit war under ‎international law.

What was the British Mandate for Palestine?

In 1919 the victors and vanquished of World War I gathered in Paris for the Versailles ‎Peace Conference.

The Conference led to the 1920 founding of the ‎League of Nations, the body that codified a Mandate system under ‎which Britain, France, Belgium, Japan, New Zealand, Australia and ‎South Africa would oversee former German and Turkish territories in the ‎Middle East, Africa and Asia. ‎

The British Mandate for Palestine made Britain responsible for putting into effect the Balfour Declaration and facilitating the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.

What else was agreed at the San Remo Conference?

The conference led to the 1920 founding of the ‎League of Nations, the body that codified a mandate system under ‎which Britain, France, Belgium, Japan, New Zealand, Australia and ‎South Africa would oversee former German and Turkish territories in the ‎Middle East, Africa and Asia. ‎

Zionist leaders Chaim Weizmann, Nahum Sokolow and Herbert Samuel were present at San Remo.

What did the Balfour Declaration say?

It promised that Britain would aid in the creation of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine.

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 endeavors 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.‎

Yours,

(signed) Arthur James Balfour

Did Britain remain faithful to the Balfour Declaration?

Once the ferocity of Arab and Muslim opposition to the idea became plain, the British authorities reconsidered their commitment to the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people—or at least one that depended on a Jewish majority.

Lord Curzon, who replaced Balfour at the Foreign ‎Office, had never been overly sympathetic to the Zionist enterprise.‎

In 1921 the British authorities began limiting the number of Jews allowed to enter Palestine. They did so again in 1929 and, most devastatingly, in 1939—when Europe’s Jews had practically no place to flee from Nazi Germany.

At the same time the flow of Arabs into Palestine went on unhindered.

How did Mandate officials relate to Jerusalem's Jews?

With the appointment of Ronald Storrs as Jerusalem’s military governor ‎in 1917 the die was cast. Thoroughly unsympathetic to the ‎Zionist cause, Storrs made sure that, for example, Jerusalem’s Jewish ‎majority was not reflected in the distribution of municipal power.

‎Even though Jews ‎comprised most of the city’s population and its taxpayers, the British always appointed a ‎Muslim mayor and two deputy mayors, one Jewish and one Christian.‎

As Jerusalem’s Jewish population got bigger, British efforts to mollify ‎Arab rage invariably fell short. During Passover 1920 Jerusalem’s ‎Arabs rioted, killing five Jews, wounding hundreds and looting ‎property. ‎

The violence could be set off by any unfounded ‎rumor that the Jews planned to destroy the Dome of the Rock or the ‎Aksa Mosque, the Muslim holy places atop the Temple Mount.‎

The atmosphere went from bad to worse.

What role did the Mufti of Jerusalem play?

In 1921 the British ‎appointed Haj Amin al Husseini as Mufti, or spiritual leader, of ‎the Palestinian Arab Muslims.

Palestinian Arabs are overwhelmingly Sunni. The Mufti is the highest exponent of the actual practice of Islamic law.

Husseini would remain at the epicenter of ‎anti-Zionist incitement until he fled to Adolf Hitler’s Berlin during ‎World War II.‎

What was Palestine's demographic picture?

By 1922 the Arab population in the Middle East was some 10 million.

In Palestine, out of an estimated population of 757,182, there were 590,890 Arabs and 88,794 Jews. Christians numbered 73,024, Druze 7,028 and there were smaller numbers of other minorities.

Hardship during World War I had driven out many of Jerusalem’s 45,000 Jews. By 1922 ‎the trend had begun to reverse. Of the 62,578 souls living in Jerusalem the Jewish ‎population had inched back up to 33,971. There were 14,699 Christians and 13,413 ‎Muslims, along with 495 others.‎

By comparison in 1931, ‎there were 51,222 Jews, ‎‎19,894 Muslims and 19,335 Christians.‎

Implicit in the Jewish homeland idea was that Jews be allowed to return to Palestine and form a majority.

In 1922 British policymakers led by Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill (who was personally supportive of the Zionist enterprise) announced that Jewish immigration to Palestine would be restricted to “economic absorptive capacity.”

What motivated anti-Zionism among the Arabs?

Actually, the most vocal early Arab opponents to Zionism were not motivated by Islam.

George Antonius (1891-1942), born into a Lebanese Christian family and influenced by Western ideas of nationalism, declared the Mideast the exclusive provenance of the Arabs on the grounds that they shared racial, cultural and linguistic bonds.

One of the first Arab nationalists and author of The Arab Awakening, Antonius envisioned creating an Arab state that would encompass Palestine.

In their encounter with Western modernity the Arabs first tried Arab nationalism and pan-Arabism.

In the 21^st century, by contrast, the Arab world has been mobilized more by political Islam and pan-Islam.

What led Britain to create Transjordan?

Britain created Transjordan out of eastern Palestine.

On September 16, 1922 the British divided Mandatory Palestine into ‎two ‎administrative areas with 77 percent earmarked for the Arabs. ‎

The background for this: In 1921 France, which had the Mandate for Syria, expelled the Hashemite Feisal from ‎his Syrian throne. Britain, which had the Mandate for Iraq, offered Feisal the throne of Iraq. But the Iraqi throne had been pledged to Feisal’s brother Abdullah. The men were the sons of the Emir Hussein of Mecca.

Abdullah then organized a rag-tag force to march on Damascus. He set up camp in Transjordan, the ‎eastern side of the River Jordan. ‎

Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill headed for Cairo to handle the ‎crisis and brokered an arrangement whereby eastern Palestine would ‎be transformed into Transjordan, with Abdullah made sovereign; Feisal ‎would become king in Iraq.

This was technically possible because the League of Nations had not yet ratified the Palestine Mandate. The draft was now altered giving Britain the right to “withhold” the Jewish homeland provisions of the Mandate “in the territories lying between the Jordan and the eastern boundary of Palestine….”

British strategist and diplomat T.E. Lawrence wrote that creating Transjordan ‎‎”honorably fulfils the whole of the promises we made to the Arabs in ‎so far as the so-called British spheres are concerned.”‎

How did Jews react to the division of Palestine?

Out of the blue the Jewish national home provisions of the Mandate ‎were made inoperative as they applied to eastern Palestine.

The space ‎for a Jewish ‎national home became dramatically smaller.

The Zionist leaders who looked to Vladimir Ze’ev Jabotinsky (1880-1940) were never reconciled to the loss of eastern Palestine.

Most others came to accept it as a fait accompli.

What became of Hashemite Arabia?

By 1925 the British-backed Hashemite family had been violently elbowed out ‎of Arabia ‎by the Saud clan of Riyadh (hence “Saudi Arabia”). Hussein, the Hashemite emir, retired to Cyprus.

The Hashemites had lost ‎the Syrian throne in 1920 after a brief ‎reign and were forced out ‎of Iraq in a military coup after ruling that country from ‎‎1921 to 1958.

Not until 1946 would the ‎eastern chunk of Palestine officially become ‎known as the Hashemite Kingdom of ‎Trans-Jordan.‎ The remaining 21^st-century Hashemite royal is Jordan’s King Abdullah ‎II. The legitimacy of the family’s rule hinges partly on assertions that ‎it is descended from Islam’s founding prophet.‎

A footnote to the land adjustments: Britain also ceded the Golan ‎Heights, situated above Galilee, to be included in the French ‎Mandate of Syria.‎

How did Britain react to Arab opposition?

The British authorities undermined the Balfour Declaration in an attempt to mollify the Arabs.‎

Violent Arab opposition to a Jewish homeland was first manifested on a large scale in April 1920 with the Nebi Musa riots in Jerusalem.

A month earlier, in March 1920, Arab irregulars comprised of Shi’ites from Syria and local Sunni Bedouin had attacked the Galilean settlement of Tel Hai. Its Jewish commander, Joseph Trumpeldor, was killed and the settlement was overrun and destroyed.

Riots in Jaffa broke out in May 1921. Another wave of rioting followed in 1924.

In August 1929 some of the most gruesome Arab rioting ‎enveloped Hebron, Jaffa and Jerusalem.

The spark? Jews had brought ‎chairs to the Western Wall for use by infirm worshippers ‎during the long Yom Kippur services. A week of countrywide rioting left 116 ‎dead. ‎

In 1933, in a variation on a theme, the rioting targeted the British as ‎much as the Jews.

In April 1936 Haj Amin al Husseini, the British-appointed Mufti of Jerusalem, instigated yet more rioting—this time under the auspices of the Arab Higher Committee ‎comprised of clan and political party leaders under his chairmanship. ‎The violence was ultimately put down thanks to a surge in British ‎forces.‎

In an attempt to mollify the Arabs, the British authorities took one ‎measure after another backtracking on the Balfour Declaration. ‎

The British Government’s Peel Commission of 1936 recommended in ‎its report the following year the division of the remaining territory of ‎western Palestine into two states.

What is Zionism?

Zionism is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people. It is the belief in the Jewish people’s inalienable right to self-determination in their ancient homeland.

The Zionist campaign for a return to Palestine was articulated by Theodor Herzl and approved at the first Zionist Congress in 1897.

The Zionist idea, though, goes back thousands of years.

“Zion” was another name for Jerusalem.

It was first used in the Bible in the Second Book of Samuel (4:7): “Nevertheless, David took the stronghold of Zion; the same is the city of David.”

At the time of the Balfour Declaration Zionists were Jews who wanted to return to Eretz Israel—the Land of Israel.  The Book of Exodus (15:14) also refers to the country, or part of it, as Philistia, which sounds like Palestine.

How did the British react to Arab opposition?

The British authorities reacted to Arab opposition to a Jewish homeland in Palestine by backpedalling on the Balfour Declaration. ‎

Violent Arab opposition to a Jewish homeland was first manifested on a large scale in April 1920 with the Nebi Musa riots in Jerusalem.

A month earlier, in March 1920, Arab irregulars comprised of Shi’ites from Syria and local Sunni Bedouin had attacked the Galilean settlement of Tel Hai. Its Jewish commander, Joseph Trumpeldor, was killed and the settlement was overrun and destroyed.

Riots in Jaffa broke out in May 1921. Another wave of rioting followed in 1924.

In August 1929 some of the most gruesome Arab rioting ‎enveloped Hebron, Jaffa and Jerusalem.

The spark? Jews had brought ‎chairs to the Western Wall for use by infirm worshippers ‎during the long Yom Kippur services. A week of countrywide rioting left 116 ‎dead. ‎

In 1933, in a variation on a theme, the rioting targeted the British as ‎much as the Jews.

In April 1936 Haj Amin al Husseini, the British-appointed Mufti of Jerusalem, instigated yet more rioting—this time under the auspices of the Arab Higher Committee ‎comprised of clan and political party leaders under his chairmanship. ‎The violence was ultimately put down thanks to a surge in British ‎forces.‎

In an attempt to mollify the Arabs, the British authorities took one ‎measure after another backtracking on the Balfour Declaration. ‎

The British Government’s Peel Commission of 1936 recommended in ‎its report the following year the division of the remaining territory of ‎western Palestine into two states.

How did the Arabs respond?

The Arabs responded to British efforts to address their concerns by digging in their heels.

The Arabs rejected all territorial ‎compromise that would involve the creation of a Jewish state in any part of Palestine.

At some point, most likely in 1937, Arab violence devolved into ‎terrorism—in other words, anti-civilian warfare.

Organized gangs bombed public ‎transport and shot at Jewish vehicles along the winding, single-lane ‎Tel Aviv-Jerusalem road.‎

What was Britain's 1939 White Paper?

In May 1939, just months before World War II would engulf ‎Europe and its Jews, Britain officially reneged on the Balfour Declaration.

As ‎it prepared to confront Nazi Germany it needed to placate the Arabs. ‎To that end London issued a so-called White Paper closing the gates ‎of Palestine to Jews and basically barring land purchases by Jews. ‎

The British authorities kept the doors to Palestine locked solid throughout ‎the Holocaust (1933-1945) and beyond, leaving Europe’s Jews virtually ‎no haven.

Still, the main Zionist camps—the followers of Chaim Weizmann and those of Vladimir Jabotinsky—largely supported Britain’s war ‎effort.

Zionist leader David Ben-Gurion declared: “We shall fight the White Paper as if there is no war, and fight the war as if there is no White Paper.”

Only the small radical Freedom Fighters for Israel, or Stern Gang, ‎attacked the British throughout WWII.

What was the Zionist Congress?

The First Zionist Congress, organized by Theodor Herzl (1860-1904), was held in Basle, Switzerland, in 1897.

The aim of Herzl’s political Zionism, the delegates agreed, “is to create for the Jewish people a home in Eretz Israel secured by law.”

Thus the Balfour Declaration—issued by the superpower of the day and later achieving the imprimatur of the international community—significantly bolstered the practical and legal efforts initiated by the Jews themselves to establish a homeland in Palestine.

How did Palestinian Arabs react to Jewish immigration?

The earliest manifestation of Arab opposition to modern political Zionism can perhaps be traced back to 1891. Arab and Muslim leaders petitioned the ruling Ottoman Sultan to stop Jewish immigration and forbid the sale of land—even wasteland—to Jewish people.

Anti-Zionist societies and newspapers were created in Cairo, Jerusalem and other places. Newly established Jewish communities—or settlements—were attacked by Arab bands starting in 1886. The Ottomans also deported many Jews.

Theodor Herzl’s efforts to persuade Sultan Abdul Hamid II to back the Zionist enterprise came to nothing— though as late as 1915 Turkey reportedly flirted with the idea of selling some of Palestine to the Zionist movement for the creation of a Jewish homeland.

What was the situation on the ground in Palestine?

The Second World War ended in May 1945. But Palestine still found no ‎peace.

The British authorities maintained a policy of limiting Jewish immigration.

In Britain the Labour Party’s Clement Attlee was now prime ‎minister, having replaced the Conservative Winston Churchill.

Attlee and his Foreign ‎Secretary Ernest Bevin (who took over from the Conservative Anthony Eden) rejected a request by US President Harry Truman ‎to allow 100,000 Holocaust survivors into Palestine.

Meanwhile militant Jewish opposition to British rule intensified, as did British ‎reprisals. ‎

How did the international community respond?

Continuing Arab opposition to the Jewish homeland idea raised a new possibility: the partition of western Palestine—the area west of the River Jordan—into two states: one Jewish and one Arab.

In May 1947 a special committee of the UN General Assembly ‎recommended that western Palestine be partitioned into Arab and ‎Jewish states. Eastern Palestine had previously been transformed into Transjordan.

On November 29, 1947, by a vote of 33 to 13 with ‎‎10 abstentions, the General Assembly voted in favor of Partition.

View Day of Decision: Excerpts from the film record of the United Nations deliberations on Palestine in 1947 courtesy of The Spielberg Jewish Film Archive – of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

What was the 1947 UN Partition Plan?

The 1947 UN Partition Plan proposed the division of western Palestine.

Eastern Palestine had already been ceded to the Arabs in1922, in what is today the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Most denizens of Jordan are Palestinian Arabs.

As the map was drawn the Jewish state with its 600,000 Jews would also be home to 350,000 Arabs. The borders themselves were pretty much indefensible. Jerusalem was to be under international auspices.

Did the United Nations adopt the Partition Plan?

The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Partition Plan on November 29, 1947 by a vote of 33 to 13, with ‎‎10 abstentions.

How did each country vote at the UN?

In favour: Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Byelorussian SSR, Canada, Costa Rica, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, France, Guatemala, Haiti, Iceland, Liberia, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, South Africa, Sweden, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela and New Zealand

• 33 countries, 72 percent of those voting

Opposed:  Afghanistan, Cuba, Egypt, Greece, India, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey and Yemen

• 13 countries

Abstentions: Argentina, Chile, China, Colombia, Ethiopia, Honduras, Mexico, Salvador, United Kingdom (Britain) and Yugoslavia

— 10 countries

How did Britain & the Arabs react to the UN Partition?

Britain made clear that it would not cooperate with the Partition Plan and ‎announced that its forces would pull out on May 15, 1948.

The Arab ‎side also rejected dividing western Palestine into Jewish and Arab states.

The Zionist leadership ‎reluctantly agreed to accept Partition.

What was the 1948 War of Independence?

Bloody urban riots and attacks on Jewish civilians had long been under way.  Arab irregular forces had infiltrated into Palestine months earlier.

The Jewish population stood at about 650,000 ranged against some 1.1 million Palestinian Arabs.

The day after Independence was declared Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon—alongside the Palestinian Arabs— sent their armies to destroy Israel.

The Egyptian Secretary-General of the Arab League, Abdul Rahman Hassan Azzam, stated the goal of the invasion: “This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades.”

Strategic Jewish settlements had to be abandoned. Jerusalem’s Old City was lost. Some 6,000 Israelis were killed (one percent of the population) and 15,000 wounded.

How did the War of Independence end?

Highly motivated Jewish forces, though vastly outnumbered, successfully pushed back the Arab onslaught. The effort to destroy the State of Israel at its birth was overcome.

Israeli forces went on the offensive and gained strategically vital territory formerly granted to the Palestinian Arabs under the United Nations Partition Plan of 1947.

No Arab country was willing to sign an actual peace treaty, but in 1949 the UN brokered an Armistice that left Jordan in control of ‎the Old City of Jerusalem and its environs as well as Judea and Samaria, or what became known as the West Bank. Egypt took charge of the Gaza ‎Strip.‎

What were the terms of the 1949 Armistice?

The parties promised not to launch or permit the launching of attacks from their territory against each other.

They furthermore agreed that the Armistice lines were not a political border.

Israel’s post-Armistice Line territory encompassed about 78 percent of the territory allocated for the Jewish homeland under the Mandate (excluding Transjordan, which had been ceded to the Arabs).

Between 1949 and 1956 alone some 500 Israelis (half of them noncombatants) were killed in cross-border incursions carried out by Arab fedayeen forces.

What were Israel's boundaries at Independence?

The pre-1947 Partition Plan boundaries with Egypt, Syria and Lebanon were restored.

Egypt also took control of the Gaza Strip, which was to have been part of Arab Palestine.

Jordan annexed Judea and Samaria, or the West Bank. Jordan also ruled over the Old City of Jerusalem and its environs.

The Arab states and the Palestinian Arabs refused to create a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza because doing so might be seen as implying acceptance of Israel’s right to exist.

Arab policy was that Palestinian Arabs made homeless by the war would be kept permanently in refugee camps rather than be absorbed.

(Map Credit: ME Facts)

Did the Independence Declaration recall Balfour?

The November 29, 1947 UN vote to partition eastern Palestine set off a new wave of violence that ‎was countered by a more assertive Zionist defense spearheaded by the ‎Haganah, Irgun and Stern Gang. ‎

On May 14, 1948 the Zionist leadership under David Ben-Gurion ‎gathered in Tel Aviv to proclaim the birth of the State of Israel.

‎Notably, Israel’s Declaration of Independence invoked Arthur James ‎Balfour:‎

‎“The right of the Jewish people to national rebirth in its own country” ‎had been “recognized in the Balfour Declaration of the 2nd November, ‎‎1917, and re-affirmed in the Mandate of the League of Nations which, ‎in particular, gave international sanction to the historic connection ‎between the Jewish people and Eretz-Israel and to the right of the ‎Jewish people to rebuild its National Home.”‎

What happened after Israel declared independence?

The day after Independence was declared Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon sent their armies to confront Israel alongside Palestinian Arab forces.

Terrible urban riots and attacks on Jewish civilians had long been under way. Arab irregular forces had infiltrated into Palestine months earlier.

The Jewish population stood at about 650,000 ranged against some 1.1 million Palestinian Arabs.

Strategic Jewish settlements (including Gush Etzion, directly south of Jerusalem) had to be abandoned. Jerusalem’s Old City (with its Western Wall and the Temple Mount) was lost. Some 6,000 Israelis were killed (one percent of the population); 15,000 were wounded.

Did the war create only one refugee problem?

Two massive refugee problems ensued.

According to UN figures, about 750,000 Palestinian Arabs fled (or in some instances were forced out of) Jewish-held areas. In time at least as many Jewish refugees fled Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen.

The new Jewish state was recognized immediately by the United States and, ‎three days later, by the Soviet Union. ‎

In 1949 the UN brokered an Armistice that left Jordan in control of ‎what came to be called the West Bank and Egypt in charge of the Gaza ‎Strip.‎

Palestinian Arab refugees would not be absorbed in any Arab country, nor would Jordan and Egypt allow the creation of a Palestinian Arab state in the West Bank and Gaza (which they controlled between 1949 and 1967).

Instead the United Nations General Assembly established the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in December 1949. By 2016 some 5 million Palestinians depended on the services of UNRWA and other international bodies.

According to 2016 UN figures, there are 65 million displaced people in the world; 21 million refugees and 10 million stateless people.

UNRWA is unique in terms of its long-standing commitment to one group of permanent refugees only: Palestinian Arabs.

Why commemorate the Balfour Declaration?

The Balfour Declaration deserves to be commemorated because 100 years ago Britain set out to do the right thing.

Its own particular national interests aside, it sought to champion justice. It set out to give the weight of its moral sanction to the Zionist cause.

James Arthur Balfour, David Lloyd George and the other members of the British War Cabinet could not have envisaged that the Declaration would be followed by unalterable Arab opposition to the Zionism.

Yet in the final analysis the Declaration did, in a matter of three decades, help pave the way for a Jewish national homeland in Palestine.

It did not happen in the ‎way its author envisioned; ‎and the Jewish homeland became a reality only after much of European Jewry had been annihilated in the Shoah. Yet the Balfour Declaration did come to fruition.

And on April 28, 1950 Britain established diplomatic relations with Israel.

What can I read to learn more?

Here are some suggestions on where to begin:

Overview

The Balfour Declaration by Leonard Stein (1961)

A History of Modern Israel by Colin Shindler (2008)

Balfour The Man

Balfour: The Last Grandee by R.J.Q. Adams (2007)

Trial and Error by Chaim Weizmann (1949)

The Mandate

Churchill’s Promised Land  by Michael Makovsky (2007)

Palestine: A Twice-Promised Land 1915-1920 by Isaiah Friedmann(2000)

One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs under the British Mandate by Tom Segev (2000)

The Balfour Declaration by Jonathan Schneer (2010)

Zionism

The Making of Modern Zionism: The Intellectual Origins of the Jewish State by Shlomo Avineri (1981)

A History of Zionism by Walter Laqueur (1972)

The Zionist Idea by Arthur Hertzberg (1959)

The Seeds of the Conflict

The Arab-Israeli Wars  by Chaim Herzog (1982)

The Siege: The Saga of Israel and Zionism  by Conor Cruise O’Brien (1986)

Palestine Betrayed  by Efraim Karsh (2010)

Army of Shadows: Palestinian Collaboration with Zionism (1917-1948)  by Hillel Cohen (2008)

Seven Fallen Pillars: The Middle East, 1915-1950  by Jon Kimche (1950)

Battleground: Fact and Fantasy in Palestine  by Samuel Katz (1973)

Israel: A History  by Anita Shapira (2014)

The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949 by Benny Morris  (1987)