Perfidious Albion: Britain’s Broken Promises – The Balfour Declaration and

its impact on the Israeli/ Palestinian

Conflict: What are our Responsibilities?

Theodor Herzl, First Zionist Conference 1895

His vocation: to sail to Israel “torestore a political existence to my people”

Lord Shaftesbury – support for Jewish Restoration

But why did he and subsequent leaders ignore the Arabs already living in the land for centuries ? This is the crucial question that returns again and again in our reflections: A solution for a suffering people at the expense of the people already living in the land…..

Complex motivation I

1. The Government’s Imperial thinking - needs of empire- secure the route to India, still the jewel in the Crown; guard the Suez Canal. This would become more important later.

2. The Great War unexpectedly turned the imperial spotlight from the west to the east. It is well-known what was happening on the western Front – the agony of the deaths in the trenches of the Somme and the Gallipoli disaster - sheer horror at the number of casualties – both British and French.

3. The role played by both Jewish Zionism and Christian Zionism. 5. Bring America into the War through the support of US Zionists. (A supposed reason offered by the Zionists?)6. Genuine sympathy for the plight of the Jews on the part of Balfour and his colleagues.

Complex Motivation II

Balfour’s conversion to Zionism

Tom Segev relates how, one night, Balfour and Weizmann walked backwards and forwards for two hours, after the latter had dined with Balfour:The Zionist movement spoke, Weizmann said, with the vocabulary of modern statesmanship, but was fuelled by a deep religious consciousness. Balfour himself, a modern statesman, also considered Zionism as an inherent part of his Christian faith. It was a beautiful night; the moon was out. Soon after, Balfour declared in a Cabinet meeting, “I am a Zionist.”

Segev, p.41. From The Letters and Papers of Chaim Weizmann.

4. Key players in the British Government

Herbert Asquith, Prime Minister who led Britain into World War I

Lord Curzon- 1st Marquis of Kedleston- opposed the BD

David Lloyd George- Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1911- ardent Zionist

Edwin Montagu – liberal politician and anti Zionist - opposed the BD – felt it was forcing Jews back into the Ghetto

Herbert Samuel – cousin of Edwin Montagu

Herbert Samuel- first High Commissioner in Jerusalem

Balfour 1919: What were the intentions of the British Government?

‘… Take Syria first. Do we mean, in the case of Syria, to consult principally the wishes of the inhabitants? We mean nothing of the kind… So whatever the inhabitants may wish, it is France they will certainly have. They may freely choose; but it is Hobson’s choice after all … The contradiction between the letter of the Covenant and the policy of the Allies is even more flagrant in the case of the ‘independent nation’ of Palestine… For in Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form for consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country.’

Walid Khalidi

. The Sykes- Picot Agreement 1916

Sir Mark Sykes

Sykes –PicotLetter1916

Mark Sykes and Georges Picot (2)

Between them they carved up areas that would become British and French spheres of influence : the agreement meant a clear decision to divide the whole of what is today’s Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan and southern Turkey into spheres of British or French control or influence, leaving only Jerusalem and part of Palestine (on Russian insistence) to some form of international administration. Only the area comprising the present-day Saudi Arabia and the Yemen Arab Republic were to be left independent. For understandable reasons, Britain and France chose to keep this agreement secret.

Between them they carved up areas that would become British and French spheres of influence : the agreement meant a clear decision to divide the whole of what is today’s Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan and southern Turkey into spheres of British or French control or influence, leaving only Jerusalem and part of Palestine (on Russian insistence) to some form of international administration. Only the area comprising the present-day Saudi Arabia and the Yemen Arab Republic were to be left independent. For understandable reasons, Britain and France chose to keep this agreement secret.

. Alliances and Promises- the McMahon Correspondence 1915

McMahon, Sir Henry 1862-1949British High Commissionerof Egypt – promises made to the Sharif of Mecca in return for supporting a rebellion against the Ottoman EmpireHe was promised the Arab state of his dreams. Did it include Palestine?

The Sharif of Mecca- Hussein Ibn Ali 1853-1931

Sharif HusseinHis son, Feisal at the Paris Peace Conference 1919- T.E.Lawrence is second on the right

Lawrence of Arabia

The key role of Chaim Weizmann and his influence on Balfour

Chaim Weizmann (2)was born in Russia in 1874, in Motol, now Belarus, but then in the “Pale of Settlement”, that area of Russia to which the Jews had been confined since the time of Catherine the Great. From an early age he became interested in chemistry and managed to study in Berlin and then Freiburg in Switzerland. He met his future wife Vera Chatzman in Switzerland. He was the whole time seeking for ways to realise the Zionist dream. Theodor Herzl’s death was a huge blow to him and he left for England in 1904 where he became a biochemistry lecturer at the University of Manchester and soon a leader among British Zionists. In fact he told his wife that the two passions of his life were Zionism and chemistry. Passions that endured to the end of his life.

David Ben Gurion in the Hall where he proclaimed the State of Israel

1948 – Al Nakba – massacre of Deir Yassin

Jewish military briefing, Deir Yassin

Palestinian refugees driven out of Galilee

The Determination to Return

Dheishe Refugee Camp, Bethlehem

Aims of the Balfour Project

David Ben Gurion in the Hall where he proclaimed the State of Israel

• to acknowledge where British policy towards Palestine was marked by duplicity, denial and racism.

• pardon for our nation’s wrongdoing- from Palestinians for having ignored their legitimate aspirations and from Jews for our part in the centuries of anti-Semitism.

• integrity in our nation’s future dealings with Jews, Palestinians, and all peoples.

Steps towards Reconciliation- what would a spirituality look like?

1. Remembering

The Peaceable Kingdom

2. Truth-telling

3. Justice-making

DominusFlevit

4. Forgiveness

5 Sacrifice

To Struggle with a Reconciling Heart