November 2 1917 CE – The Balfour Declaration Offers British Support to a Jewish Nation in Palestine

285

*Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons In a bid to shore up support in its fight against the German and Austro-Hungarian armies, the British government issued a bold statement with long-ranging consequences on November 2, 1917: according to the Balfour Declaration, “His Majesty’s government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” Nearly a century later, the decision still echoes in Middle East conflict. In the two decades or so before Europe plunged into World War I, a variety of influences shaped ideas toward the “Jewish Question.” Facing increasing isolation as a suspect class all across the continent, Theodor Herzl wrote Der Judenstaat (“The Jewish State”) to present an argument for a home for his people in ancestral lands in order to stem the tide of anti-Semitism sweeping through Europe. Founding the Zionist Organization in the months that followed, Herzl and others pointed to territory held by the Ottoman Empire as the proper location. As World War I turned into a stalemate during 1916, the British government sought ways to turn the stalled conflict into a victory through the addition of new allies. Looking to the west, the inclusion of the United States seemed an unlikely possiblity — the non-interventionist President Woodrow Wilson had carefully kept the country out of the conflict up until that point. In the east, Russia was in the midst of a revolution as 1917 carried on. In discussions with Dr. Chaim Weizmann, a Jewish chemist with Zionist ties who had greatly aided the war effort, British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour came to the conclusion a policy supporting a Jewish homeland might tip the balances in his nation’s favor. The Marxist leader and Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky, after all, came from a Jewish family. And, with some of Wilson’s closest advisors known to have Zionist leanings, Balfour believed a declaration would be “extremely useful propaganda both in Russia and America.” (The Americans had already become associated with the Allied cause, while the Russians had left the conflict altogether to tend to issues at home in the wake of revolt. The Declaration did little, if any, to change attitudes.) During a deeply-divided debate amongst the British cabinet lasting several months, the proper tone of the Balfour Declaration was worked out so that it might be presented to the public on November 2, 1917. The carefully-chosen words reflected a desire for the creation of a “Jewish national home” in Palestine that would not impinge upon the rights of the Arabs already living in the area. Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca, writing months later in the Muslim holy city’s newspaper Al Qibla, declared it an opportunity for new relationships and a spirit of brotherhood. The decades that followed, however, would tell a different story. By the early 1920s, opposition to the Balfour Declaration had grown from several angles. Palestinian Arabs took to the streets protesting the post-war British occupation of their homeland, adding concerns about the haphazard institution of a new government led by displaced Jews to their cries. Winston Churchill, then just a Member of Parliament, sent a letter deploring the tax burden on British citizens. The Zionists, for their part, believed the document had not done enough to say their home would be Palestine and nowhere else. Though it would take another three decades and a Second World War for the Jews to receive the territory they coveted, 1948 was only the start of a conflict that has spawned seven recognized wars, numerous skirmishes and countless low-level actions by terrorist organizations and covert operatives from both sides in the decades since. Also On This Day: 1769 – Don Gaspar de Portola becomes the first European to visit San Francisco Bay 1936 – Benito Mussolini declares a Rome-Berlin Axis, the treaty establishing the Axis Powers 1936 – The British Broadcasting Corporation initiates BBC Television Service, the first regular television station in the world, later renamed BBC1 1953 – Legislators writing a constitution decide on the Islamic Republic of Pakistan as the new nation’s official name 1983 – United States President Ronald Reagan authorizes the creation of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day