On Arthur Balfour and his Zionist sympathies

There has been much ambiguity on how the Declaration came into being. Balfour was certainly involved in the negotiations leading to it and Lloyd George put on record that Balfour himself proposed the wording but others, especially Sir Mark Sykes and Leopold Amery, both members of the War Secretariat, must be given much credit for the historic statement. Balfour in fact once stated that he happened to be the mouthpiece of his colleagues in making the Declaration and Harold Nicolson, diplomat and politician who worked at the Foreign Office during the Great War, recorded that the statement took weeks to draft, with every word being scrutinised with the greatest thought and forethought. Chaim Weizmann once said that some two thousand interviews had gone into the making of the Declaration.

Sykes, said to be the man with most intellectual affinity with Balfour has in fact been called the ‘godfather’ of the Declaration; there is even a view amongst historians that Balfour’s share in the Declaration was rather small and that it could as easily have been called the ‘Sykes Declaration’. The British government decided to initiate talks with the Zionist leaders early in 1917 and it was Mark Sykes, who had been responsible on the British side for the 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement, the secret British-French plan for the partition of the Ottoman Empire once Turkey had been defeated, who took the initiative. His agreement with Picot allowed France to take control of much of Syria, that included most of the Galilee, with British influence to be mainly in the Acre/Haifa region. This agreement would have prevented the Zionists from making much progress on their objectives regarding the future of Palestine and Sykes, realising that this plan was not in his country’s interests, quickly tried to convince his government that Palestine should be within British control.

The former High Commissioner for South Africa Alfred Lord Milner, a member of the five-man War Cabinet, also became convinced that British interests would be best served by an understanding with the Zionists and showed his colleagues how to proceed. However, there is little doubt that there would not have been a Jewish national home in Palestine had Prime Minister Lloyd George not been exceptionally well-versed in the Bible and had Balfour not found a cause that had a very strong emotional appeal to him. Lloyd George himself has said that he was brought up in a school where he was taught far more of the history of the Jews than about the history of his own land. He was a keen Zionist and when Prime Minister was deeply involved in the decision to support Jewish hopes. The Declaration could thus have well been entitled ‘the Lloyd George Declaration’ had he himself chosen to sign the letter to Lord Rothschild. Lloyd George’s involvement with Zionism went back to 1903 when, as a young lawyer, he had been engaged to draft an agreement that Theodor Herzl arranged to make with the British government following the latter’s offer of East Africa for Jewish settlement.

The Declaration was not issued merely for sentimental reasons – there were many wide-ranging political reasons as well. Weizmann’s work on acetone production has often been quoted as the prime reason for British action on Zionism but Herbert Samuel scotches this, making it clear that Lloyd George was fully in support of Zionist aspirations without the need to reward Weizmann for his chemical achievements. In 1937 Lloyd George told the Peel Commission that the Zionist cause had been widely supported both in Britain and America before the Declaration was launched and that it was enacted for “propagandist reasons”. He added that it had been with his full agreement that Balfour entered into negotiations with Zionist leaders.

Balfour became a keen supporter of a national home for Jews in Palestine, with a real understanding of the Zionist cause; he wanted Jews to have their rightful place in the world. He himself looked upon Zionism as having provided one of the two greatest opportunities in his life – Ireland being the other – although not long before he died he said that nothing he had done or tried to do would prove of more permanent value to the world than his support for the Jewish national cause. Even after his death he was being remembered for his support for Zionism. In 1943, Churchill told a group of people that after Hitler was defeated, Britain would have to ensure that the Jews were established in Palestine because Balfour had left him an inheritance that he had no intention of changing.

Blanche Dugdale remembered in childhood imbibing from her uncle the idea that the Christian religion and civilisation owed Judaism an immeasurable debt. He had been brought up in a genuinely Christian environment thanks to his mother’s fervent beliefs, was familiar with Old Testament texts and believed that religious persecution of Jews was “the deepest stain on Christian civilisation”. The role of the Jew in modern society intrigued him and he was aware of the Jewish contribution to Western culture. His Conservative Party showed much antisemitism, with many of its members anxious to limit Jewish entry from Eastern Europe, but Balfour’s attitude was much more moderate. In the House of Commons debate on the Aliens Bill, he declared that the treatment of Jews had been a disgrace to Christendom, one “which tarnishes the fair fame of Christianity”. He had an uneasy conscience relating to the Aliens Act of 1905 and had sought to atone for this through his support for Zionism. Balfour became enthusiastic about Zionism for the rest of his life following meetings with Weizmann. He had done his best to support Chamberlain’s East Africa project and was puzzled by the Zionist rejection of this offer. It was not until he met Weizmann in 1906 that he realised that Palestine was the only possible home for Jews, understanding that Zionism was no mere local adventure but a serious attempt to mitigate Jewish miseries created by Western civilisation. Despite being in the middle of a savage general election campaign (in which he lost his Parliamentary seat), he gave Weizmann an hour of his time (not a quarter hour as had been envisaged). Weizmann was able to convince him that if a home was to be found for the Jewish people, it was vain to seek it anywhere but Palestine. It was thus from this meeting that Balfour saw that the Jewish form of patriotism was unique and Weizmann’s absolute refusal even to consider the Uganda scheme impressed him greatly.

Some years later, early in the war in 1914 and on Lloyd George’s suggestion, Weizmann again met Balfour, who was affected, to the point of tears, by Weizmann’s description of the Jewish problem and especially of the treatment Jews received in Russia. He told Weizmann that he had a great cause that he understood, that Christian civilisation owed the Jews a debt and that Jews should receive British help in order to achieve normal nationhood. The two men formed a genuiune friendship and Weizmann was in fact the last non-family friend to visit Balfour just before he died in May 1930. Weizmann broke down in tears when Balfour’s death was commemorated at a meeting of the Zionist General Council in London. Blanche Dugdale saw a mystical element in Balfour’s Zionism that was encouraged by the messianic faith of Weizmann but it is, however, generally accepted now that Balfour’s deep commitment to Zionism came after his Declaration was announced.

Balfour took no special action on the subject of Zionism until he was appointed Foreign Secretary by Lloyd George in December 1916. But earlier in October the government had been presented with a Zionist programme for Palestine for the time when the country would be conquered from the Turks. This asked for recognition of a separate Jewish nationality in Palestine and for the creation of a Jewish Chartered Company to allow Jewish resettlement there. By March 1917 the war against Turkey had reached the stage where a British military advance into Palestine was imminent. This gave Lloyd George and Balfour the opportunity of raising the Zionism issue in government. By the time Balfour went to Washington in May 1917, where he met Judge Louis Brandeis, one of America’s leading Zionists, a decision had been taken for some action to be taken on the subject. Brandeis was impressed with Balfour’s understanding of the Jewish problem and by his telling him, “I am a Zionist”.

The British government nevertheless was not altogether altruistic in its support for a Jewish national home in Palestine. It knew in September 1917 that Germany was actively trying to court favour with the world Zionist movement, which was especially strong in Russia and America, and it was conjectured that a declaration in support of Zionist aspirations would help the Allied cause and secure the aid of Jewish financial interests. Balfour warned the Cabinet of German intentions and gained its support by telling its members that most Jews in Russia, America and even elsewhere were now fully supporting Zionism, hence a declaration in favour of Zionism would help the British cause. Seven members of the Jewish community were then consulted on a draft pronouncement and while three were hostile, four – Chief Rabbi Hertz, Lord Rothschild, Herbert Samuel’s brother, Stuart, then President of the Board of Deputies and Samuel himself were in favour. Balfour then asked Weizmann and Rothschild to submit a statement that he could present to the Cabinet. He told the Cabinet that he saw nothing inconsistent in establishing a Jewish national home in Palestine where Jews could be citizens just as they could be in other countries. He had informed the Americans of German intentions and emphasised that he knew that President Wilson was sympathetic to Zionism. Despite objections from two Cabinet members – Lord Curzon and its only Jewish member, Edwin Montagu – Balfour’s efforts to gain his government agreement was achieved. Lloyd George, who was later to reveal that Balfour’s negotiations with the Zionists took place “with my zealous assent as Prime Minister” can in fact be credited with the final decision on the Declaration. A Cabinet meeting in September 1917, held in the absence of Lloyd George and Balfour had, thanks to objections from Montagu, put the proposals on one side. It was only after Weizmann managed to see Lloyd George that the issue was put back on the Cabinet’s agenda. But this did not mean that British politicians were simply opportunistic because Lloyd George, Balfour and most (but not all) other leading political figures in government and in Opposition had sympathy with the Zionist ideal. It is clear that most of the Cabinet of the time were committed supporters of Zionism, primarily in the old-fashioned sense influenced by the Bible.

Balfour’s original intention had apparently been for Palestine to be some form of protectorate under British, French or American control. He saw Palestine as a place where Jews could build up a real centre of agricultural, industrial and cultural life but he became anxious for another country other than Britain to take over responsibility for it. He did have reservations about Britain being given the Mandate and was at one time anxious to get the Americans to take it over, even suggesting that efforts should be made to bring France into the discussions. He told Weizmann that if France did not wish to take part they should work for an Anglo-American protectorate, something that greatly concerned Weizmann, who was worried that having two countries involved was a dangerous concept. Even as the Declaration was being finally formulated, Balfour was hoping to involve the Americans in helping to establish a Jewish home. He tried on a few occasions to get the United States to take over responsibility for Palestine and in October 1918 attempted to get the League of Nations to award it the Mandate. When, a year later, this became unlikely he still hoped that some other country would accept the Mandate, but by August 1920 he realized that it would almost certainly be given to Britain and came to accept that there was no alternative to Britain as mandatory power, a policy always favoured by Lloyd George. Balfour then was engaged in discussions to obtain League of Nations approval for the terms of the declaration. All this concluded in April 1920 with the San Remo Conference approving the decision to award the Mandate to Britain.

At one point in Cabinet discussions, Balfour emphasised that a national home for Jews did not necessarily involve the early establishment of an independant Jewish state but he soon changed his position on this. There was always concern in Zionist circles on whether the Declaration meant that a Jewish state would eventually be created and Balfour more than once confirmed that this was the intention. Rabbi Stephen Wise, one of America’s leading Zionists, saw him in London in December 1918 and asked him to amplify the definition of “a national home for the Jewish people”. Balfour replied that it meant that Jews who wanted to go to Palestine then or in the future would have the right to do so, adding that he looked upon Palestine as a future home for millions of such Jews. In fact, at a key Cabinet meeting he had argued that Palestine could support a very much larger population than existed under Turkish rule. There was a potential problem later in 1921 when Weizmann expressed fears that the Declaration was being eroded and that High Commissioner Herbert Samuel was hesitating over its implementation. However, both Balfour and Lloyd George assured him that the Declaration always meant that eventually there would be a Jewish state. Many years later, in 1937, Lloyd George told Weizmann that Cabinet minutes for 2 November 1917 revealed that Balfour had declared that the natural evolution of the ‘National Home’ would lead in the course of time to a state.

A measure of Balfour’s commitment to Zionism post-1917 was shown in September 1918 when he wrote the introduction to Nahum Sokolow’s authoritative work History of Zionism 160 0 -1918. There, he wrote that if Zionism could be developed into a working scheme it would bring great benefit especially to those Jews who “most deserve our pity”. Balfour was continuous in writing and speaking in very favourable terms about Jewry. At a demonstration in 1920 aimed at thanking the British government for incorporating the Declaration for a Jewish national home into the Peace Treaty with Turkey, he affirmed that he had long been a committed Zionist and that he hoped the Arabs would remember that while a Jewish national home was being established, all the Great Powers and most especially Great Britain had “freed them from the tyranny of their brutal conqueror who had kept them under his heel for many centuries”. He added that he hoped the Arabs would not “grudge that small notch… in what are now Arab territories being given to the people who for all these hundreds of years have been separated from it”. Parts of this speech were quoted in the final report of the 1937 Peel Commission that recommended the partition of Palestine. Balfour was anxious for Jews and Arabs to work together because “in the darkest days of the darkest ages, when Western civilisation appeared almost extinct, smothered under barbaric influences, it was the Jews and Arabs in combination working together who greatly aided the first sparks which illuminated that gloomy period”. He recognised the problems that would arise between Arab and Jew. Building a Jewish homeland in the Holy Land would not be easy, he said. It would “require tact, require judgement, it will require above all sympathetic goodwill on the part of Jews and Arabs”. But he saw the needs of the Jews to be more important than those of the Arabs saying in 1926 that right or wrong, Zionism was rooted in age-long traditions and the needs of Jewry were far more important than “the desires and prejudices” of the 700 000 Arabs living in Palestine; he viewed Arab claims to be infinitely weaker than those of Jews. In his maiden speech in the House of Lords, Balfour spoke emphatically in favour of Jewish immigration. He repeated his view that Palestine could maintain a population far greater than it had under Turkish rule and denied that Arabs would suffer from Jewish immigration. It was, he said, “surely in order that we send a message to every land where the Jewish race has been scattered …that will tell them that Christendom is not oblivious of their fall… and that we [should] give them that opportunity of developing in peace and quietude under British rule”.At this stage he did not decare his support for an eventual Jewish state. He told their Lordships that of all the charges made against Britain “the charge that we have been unjust to the Arab race seems to me to be the strangest”. On the tenth anniversary of his historic Declaration, he said that Zionism was one of the greatest experiments ever conceived and that he was convinced that it would succeed.

Balfour was especially enthusiastic about the establishment of the Hebrew University at Mount Scopus. He had sent a cordial message when the foundation stone was laid in 1918 and, although aged seventy-seven and not in robust health, was at the university’s opening in April 1925. Appearing in the scarlet robes of Chancellor of Cambridge University, he formally inaugurated the new university building, proclaiming that a “new era had opened in the history of the scattered people”. In a moving address, he emphasised that this “new great seat of learning” should be a Hebrew one with Hebrew as its language. “A great cultural effort within Palestine which came to an end many hundreds of years ago is going to be resumed in the ancient home of the people”. Weizmann then took him around the country, where he was enthusiastically received. He told Weizmann that he was impressed with the flourishing settlements that were testifying to the soundness and strength of the growing national home. However, when he passed through Damascus after leaving Jerusalem, there were Arab disturbances with several dead and wounded. Ronald Storrs, then Governor of Jerusalem, later wrote that Balfour would have been “torn to pieces” by the Damascus crowd had he not been guarded on a liner in Beirut harbour by a French torpedo-destroyer. But when Weizmann apologised for the incidents, he replied that this was nothing to what he had experienced in Ireland.

One of Balfour’s last political interventions was in 1928, when Weizmann wanted a British guarantee towards a loan for economic development in Palestine. Balfour, a member of Stanley Baldwin’s Cabinet, arranged for Weizmann to discuss the matter with himself and with Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston Churchill but although both Ministers agreed to support the loan, the Cabinet rejected it. The 1929 riots in Palestine concerned him greatly and although bedridden he was said to be waiting for a signal where he could be of some use. To his end, he was certain that he had taken the right action on Zionism. Nothing had occured to suggest the least doubt of what he had done, he wrote.

Balfour’s contribution to Zionism has, apart from his being the signatory of the famous Declaration, not been fully recognised. Right up to the end of his life he continued his belief in a Jewish national home, and a measure of his stature within the Yishuv was shown by the many tributes and memorial services that followed his death. A small moshav (agrarian settlement) in the Jezreel Valley was given the name “Balfouria” in his honour.

Cecil Bloom, a veteran contributor to Jewish Affairs, is a former technical director of a multinational pharmaceutical firm in the UK. His essays on Jewish themes relating to music, literature, history and Bible have also appeared in Midstream, Jewish Quarterly and the Jerusalem Post.