(Author: Cecil Bloom, Vol. 65, No. 2, Rosh Hashanah 2010)

Sir Mark Sykes

The support of Mark Sykes (1879-1919), noted primarily in history as one of the authors of the Sykes-Picot Agreement that planned the post-war division of ex-Turkish territories, for Zionism was primarily based on what he perceived as diplomatic advantages for his country but he later demonstrated much admiration for Jewish settlement in Palestine. He became a student of Turkish affairs following Herbert Samuel’s writing a paper in 1915 for the British Cabinet on the future of Palestine. Up to then he knew little about Zionism and he disliked what he did know but he came to favour Britain having a firm foothold in Palestine and decided that a Jewish settlement there would provide the answer. Haham Moses Gaster with whom he became friendly before 1914 is credited with winning Sykes over to Zionism and, as an Assistant Secretary to the War Cabinet, Sykes played a decisive role in the negotiations that led to the Balfour Declaration. Leopold Amery gives him most credit for drawing up the Balfour Declaration writing that Sykes’ “imaginative and receptive mind had at once seized upon all the possibilities of the Zionist movement. He became an enthusiastic Zionist [that] found an entirely new scope when he became a War Cabinet Secretary”. Amery added that the Zionist movement owed much to Sykes’ infectious enthusiasm and indefatigable energy. Harold Nicolson, diplomat and author, who worked for Sykes at this time claimed that the Declaration may never have been effected without Sykes’ persistent pressure on Lloyd George and Balfour. Weizmann thought very highly of Sykes’ advice and he was the only non-Jew present at a key meeting in February 1917 when he spoke at length on the difficulties that the Zionists would be facing. Leonard Stein devotes much space in his book The Balfour Declaration to his involvement. Zionism appealed to Sykes who was attracted to the way it showed pride in agricultural settlements that contrasted with the traditional urban Jewish way of life and he was so enthusiastic about his Government declaring itself in favour of a national home for Jews in the Holy Land that after the Cabinet had approved the final text of the declaration, he brought the document to Weizmann who was waiting outside the Cabinet room and exclaimed to him “Dr Weizmann, it’s a boy!”. Sykes was a devoted Roman Catholic and, as a Christian, felt that in helping the Zionist adventure to succeed he would be doing something “to make good a great amend”. It is a tragedy that he died in 1919 because his influence in Government circles could have been crucial in the difficult years that followed.

General Orde Wingate

Orde Wingate (1903-1944) was quite different from our other Gentile Zionists in that, while in Palestine, he participated in military exploits as a leader of Jewish forces in activities relating to the defence of the Yishuv. He had no political influence in Government circles but he was a very positive contributor to Yishuv life. His grandfather had been in charge of a Church of Scotland mission to Hungary for poor Jews and his parents were missionaries but he saw his mission as being to convert young Palestinian Jews to military action in order to defend themselves. The Bible was part of his life – it was said of him that he had been born not with a silver spoon in his mouth but with a Bible in his hand – but, unlike his forebears, he had no desire to convert Jews to Christianity. Before taking Jewish fighters into action against Arabs he would read the appropriate passage of the Bible relating to the places in which he would be operating. He took it as a privilege to help Palestinian Jews in their battles against the Arabs and he wanted to devote his life to that aim because the very existance of mankind was justified when it was based on the moral foundation of the Bible. As a British soldier, he served in Palestine for three years until despatched by the authorities back to Britain in 1939.

He first served in the Sudan and in Libya but, as an expert in Arab affairs, was promoted to captain and posted in 1936 to Palestine working as an Intelligence Officer in Haifa. Within a few months he had become a Zionist soon becoming embroiled in Zionist affairs and identifying himself completely with the Yishuv. Wingate had a powerful personality described by Weizmann as a fanatical Zionist who was idolized by those that fought under his command and who were filled with admiration for his qualities of endurance, courage and originality. Weizmann once referred to him as “my favourite madman”. Understandably, he was not very popular with many of his Army colleagues who were not endeared to the Zionist cause. His enthusiasm did, at first, cause some concern within the Yishuv leadership who were suspicious that an Arab-speaking British officer could be so sympathetic to them but he soon won them over.

Wingate believed that a Jewish Legion similar to the Arab one in Transjordan would provide the best fighting force in the region. One of his duties was to counter terrorist attacks on the oil pipeline from Iraq to Haifa and he created a special motor-cycle squad, mainly of Haganah Jews but containing some British officers and NCO’s, to patrol at night the whole length of the pipeline and this succeeded in eliminating Arab threats to the line. The squads were small ones, never larger than two hundred in number, but his success was a psychological boost for the Yishuv. Initially his scheme was opposed by his own Head-Quarters staff but he won over the British Commander General Wavell to these unorthodox methods. He caused a sensation when he took men into action for the first time against Arabs because British policy at that time was that Jews could only defend themselves within their own settlements. The biggest battle fought by his Special Night Squads was at Dabburiyah on the slopes of Mount Tabor close to the Sea of Galilee. Wingate himself was wounded but one of the most dangerous Arab terrorist groups was completely defeated. Wingate became a confidant of those in charge of the defence of the Yishuv and he co-operated a great deal with Haganah, at that time a proscribed organisation. He was generally referred to as Ha-Yadid (The Friend) and he would sometimes retire to a kibbutz where he would speak Hebrew and try to get a better understanding of life there. He was unquestionably a maverick, an unconventional individual who never conformed to traditional British behaviour, and he always aired his views irrespective of his audience. It was no surprise, therefore, when he was sent back to Britain to an anti-aircraft battery. Before he left, however, he spoke in most affectionate terms of the work of his squads and he promised to return to the country in the future if not in a conventional manner but as a ma’apil (an illegal refugee). Soon after he left, many of the men who fought with him were arrested and charged with possessing illegal weapons and being members of the Haganah illegal organisation. (Moshe Dayan was one of these). Wingate was then despatched to Abbysinia to help Haile Selassie liberate his people from Mussolini and, promoted to Major-General, finally to Burma where he led a special unit, the Chindits, behind Japanese lines. He was killed in an accident in Burma in 1944 but his body was only found some three years later.

There is no doubt that Wingate made some very positive contributions to the Zionist cause when he was in Eretz Israel and his work cannot be overestimated in training young Jews to fight. Blanche Dugdale who disliked Wingate once wrote of him that it was lucky for the Zionist movement that Wingate’s fanatical Zionism got the better of his sense of duty as an intelligence officer and that he was “clearly one of the instruments in God’s hands”. Many of the early military leaders of Israel learnt their trade from Wingate and admired him immensely and his influence on Haganah and Palmach was huge. He has been credited with being one of the founders of the Israel Defence Forces (I.D.F.) and Moshe Dayan called him a military genius, a wonderful man with a dominating personality who infected all with his fanaticism and faith. Wingate had an ambition to command a future Jewish army and it is worth speculating the role he may have played in the armed struggle against the Arabs at the State’s foundation. Shortly before Wingate’s death a Jewish Brigade was eventually formed and Weizmann asked for him to be appointed this unit’s commander but this was rejected by the War Office.

Wingate was married to a remarkable woman, Lorna, who was also active in Zionist affairs being a leader of Youth Aliyah in Britain. He has certainly been honoured in a very positive manner by Israel. Yemin Orde, the Wingate College of Physical Education near Netanya is a children’s village, and there is a forest on Mount Gilboa bearing his name.

David Lloyd George

As a boy David Lloyd George (1863-1945) was said to know the geography of the Holy Land better than that of his native Wales and he was very familiar with the sayings of the Hebrew prophets so that he instinctively associated Palestine with the Hebrew nation. Lloyd George’s involvement with Zionism actually 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 and in 1905 he was saying he was an ardent believer in the Zionist movement. He put on record that he was proud to have participated in the negotiations that led to the Balfour Declaration and the declaration could, in fact, have been entitled the Lloyd George Declaration had he, as Prime Minister, so decided. Early on in the War, Herbert Samuel circulated the British Cabinet with a memorandum entitled The Future of Palestine and his proposal for the country to be annexed to the British Empire and thereby encourage Jewish colonisation and cultural development appealed to Lloyd George’s “poetic and imaginative as well as to the romantic and religious qualities of his mind”. He saw Zionism as “a great idea”. In 1923 he made it clear where he stood on Zionism by publishing an article entitled Palestine and the Jews in which he wrote “If Palestine is to be restored to a condition even approximating to its ancient prosperity, it must be by settling Jews on its soil…Restoration is only possible by a race that is prepared for sentimental reasons to make and endure sacrifices for this purpose” and he added that letting Jews redeem the land from the wilderness to restore it to its ancient glory would be no injustice to any other race. He denounced the 1930 White Paper and predicted that Britain would then be viewed throughout the world as “perfidious Albion”. Statements subsequent to the Balfour Declaration made by him and by Jan Smuts and other leading Cabinet ministers of the time place beyond dispute that Lloyd George’s intention was that Jews should be free to settle in Palestine in the largest numbers that the land could support and that, when a majority of the population was Jewish and they were firmly settled there, they should be able to set up their own autonomous Administration. After he left office in 1922 he spoke on many occasions in favour of Zionism, both in Britain and in America, and he always made it clear that British policy in Palestine was a betrayal of what the Balfour Declaration stood for.

Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen.

Richard Meinertzhagen (1878-1967) had strong philo-semitic sentiments and for some years he was an important member of the British Government’s staff in the Middle East. He was also an ornithologist of international repute. A nephew of Beatrice Webb who like her husband Lord Passfield was no friend of the Zionist movement, he was an ‘out and out’ Zionist and was vigorously anti-Arab. By some historians he was seen as a maverick, “an enfant terrible…a violent and prejudiced partisan…a lone operator…almost unique among senior officers in Palestine”. Meinertzhagen apparently met Hitler on a number of occassions and at his first meeting in 1934 he claimed that he responded to Hitler’s greeting “Heil Hitler” with “Heil Meinertzhagen” at which he said “nobody smiled” but one suspects that the story is an apocryphal one. At this meeting Hitler impressed him as a sincere and absolutely truthful personality but his views changed later.

As a professional Army officer, he was in charge of Allenby’s Intelligence Section stationed in Cairo and was involved with Aaron Aaronsohn’s NILI operation that provided much information to the British in the war with Turkey. He was a member of the British delegation at the Paris Peace Conference later becoming Allenby’s Chief Political Officer in Palestine. Despite his name he had no Jewish blood and was of Danish extraction but he has written that “bringing Jews back to their old Home after nearly two thousand years of dispersal and persecution” was “the most constructive and important outcome of the First World War”. While a member of the British delegation in Paris, he wrote to Prime Minister Lloyd George telling him that Britain was very wise in allowing Jews to establish a National Home in Palestine. Jewish and Arab sovereignty was bound to clash but Britain should befriend the Jews who were virile, brave, determined and intelligent and who would be most likely to be loyal friends compared to decadent, stupid and dishonest Arabs. Meinertzhagen was a rebel and outsider who came under Chaim Weizmann’s spell and with whom he developed a close relationship. Weizmann saw him as “a man of lion-hearted courage” who “whenever he can perform a service for the Jews or Palestine will go out of his way to do so”.

In his book Middle East Diary Meinertzhagen makes clear his deep commitment to the Zionist cause. He believed that it was a fundamental religious duty for Jews to develop Palestine as their home and it was a ”monstrous injustice” that Jews did not have a home of their own and he showed contempt for anti-Zionist Jews. When Balfour opened the Hebrew University in 1925 he offered up a “silent prayer” that the University would “sow the seeds of a political and national Zionism which would eventually dominate the Middle East”. Years later in 1933 he was recording that Zionism had come to stay and was no longer an experiment and in his dreams he saw “a contented prosperous Jewish state eventually spreading to Transjordan and Syria”. He was under no illusion about the attitude of the Arabs and of British officials in Palestine and was constantly critical of their motives never holding back on his views. After the Arab riots in April 1920 he wrote to Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon pointing out that most of the British officers in the Administration in Palestine were anti-Zionist and were encouraging the Arabs in their activities. He was critical of many in the Colonial Office where he saw the atmosphere as being ‘hebraphobic’ and that there were powerful forces working against Zionism both in Britain and in Palestine but what comes over in his writings is that he never flagged in his support for the Zionist venture. As a consequence, he was not very popular in some Government circles.

Meinertzhagen was not in favour of terrorism as carried out by Irgun Zvei Leumi but understood the reasons for it. He once said that had he been Jewish he would have become a violent terrorist who would have “aimed at Whitehall”. He deplored the assassination of Lord Moyne although he understood why it occured but considered Churchill’s comments following Moyne’s murder were unjust. It is fair to conclude that he had the future of the Yishuv and then of the State very much at the centre of his beliefs. A measure of the latter is a letter sent to The Times soon after Suez when he wrote that Israel had invaded no-man’s land and it was a question of “whether we [Britain] or the United Nations have the right to compel her to withdraw from a country which belongs to nobody”.

Leopold Amery

Is it appropriate for Leopold Amery to appear as a subject in this article? Recent research has shown that he was of Jewish birth and he has been described as a ‘secret Jew’ but, since this was unknown throughout the whole course of his political career, he is worth including here. Amery (1873 – 1955) as an Assistant Secretary to the War Cabinet together with his colleague Sir Mark Sykes played a key part in the drafting of the Balfour Declaration in 1917 and he maintained a keen interest in Zionism throughout his life. He was incensed to find that there were some leading British Jews who opposed Balfour’s declaration. He once claimed that, apart from knowing of Theodor Herzl vaguely, he was unaware of the Zionist movement until Mark Sykes spoke to him on the subject but this is hard to believe given his Jewish roots. But soon he became convinced that a prosperous Jewish Palestine would be an asset in the defence of the Suez Canal and would also serve as a station for future air routes. He believed that a national home for Jews would reduce the influence of anti-semitism and that only Jews could build a strong civilisation in Palestine that would help the country to hold its own against German-Turkish oppression. Amery was Colonial Secretary from 1925 to 1929, a period that provided impressive growth for the Jewish economy in Palestine. Later he fought the anti-Zionist policies of his Government and he voted against the notorious 1939 White Paper. In the House of Commons debate on this White Paper, he defended the Balfour Declaration that he believed was a unique opportunity for a contribution to the solution of baffling and tragic problems relating to the fate of the Jewish people. He said “I could never hold up my head again if I voted for a Government that was going back upon a pledge given not only to Jews but to the whole civilised world when it assumed the Mandate”. He was certain that the consequences of following the White Paper would be that all the good work that had made Palestine the most prosperous country in the Middle East would be destroyed by an Arab majority. He testified at the Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry on Palestine in 1946 in support of Zionism and in 1950 was one of the first non-Jewish (sic) British politicians to visit Israel.

And A Few More

The individuals dealt with above are those whose commitment to Zionism is considered to be foremost but there were others who showed much sympathy to the movement. William Ormsby-Gore, later Lord Harlech, (1885-1964) may not be readily recognised as a sympathiser probably because he served as Colonial Secretary at a period when the Zionist movement was having much difficulty with the Government but he faced strong opposition from the Foreign Office. As a member of the Arab Bureau in Cairo, he was active in Palestinian affairs and was an early supporter of Aaron Aaronsohn’s NILI espionage group. He understood Zionist aspirations and told the Foreign Office that “all that the Zionists seek is to give the Jewish people freedom to settle, acquire land and build up industries and schools”. He helped Weizmann in negotiations prior to the Balfour Declaration and followed this up by participating in big demostrations held to thank the British Government. He saw the Jewish claim to Palestine as overwhelming and said that behind the concept of a return to Palestine to be a Jewish home was “the finger of God”. In 1920 he wrote a scholarly article that was very positive about the future of a Jewish National Home in Palestine. A new chapter of Jewish history was being written and he had no doubt that nothing would now stop the Zionist movement from succeeding. history. Ormsby-Gore was in favour of Peel’s partition plan that he believed would lead to the establishment of an independant state but wanted action taken against Arab terrorism.

Blanche Dugdale (‘Baffy’ to her friends) was a niece of Arthur Balfour and she was seen as being the most outstanding non-Jewish supporter of the Zionist movement. She completely identified herself with the movement. She was a close confidant of Weizmann being one of his most devoted supporters and a much loved friend of both Weizmanns. Her diaries entitled Baffy are an important source of the history of the period. Dugdale attended many Zionist Congresses.

The South African statesman General Jan Smuts (1870-1950) is another Zionist friend. Smuts who came under the influence of the Bible early in his life and who believed that the return of Jews to Palestine was divinely ordained was a member of the British Cabinet during the First World War although he does not appear to have taken a leading role in the negotiations that led to the Balfour Declaration.. He first became interested in the subject early in 1917 while making a study of the military situation in Turkey and Jabotinsky’s proposal for a Jewish unit in the British Army appealed to him. In the years following the war, more than any other politician, he wanted the Declaration to be properly honoured. In 1921 he said that it was one of the most historic results of the war and he followed this up in 1926 by saying that the Balfour Declaration would be seen as one of the great causes and one of the principal achievements of the war. With others, he opposed the 1930 White Paper. He told the Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry that the Balfour Declaration was a “solemn and sacrosant document”. Smuts was a sincere supporter of all that Weizmannn stood for and his Government was the first in the British Commonwealth to recognise the state of Israel, one of the first anywhere in the world to do so.

C.P. Scott (1846-1932), the legendary editor of the Manchester Guardian, could perhaps have claimed to have been the initiator of the National Home for Jews in Palestine because he was responsible for introducing Weizmann to Lloyd George, the event that led up to the Balfour Declaration. Before meeting Weizmann in September 1914 he knew little of Zionism but quickly began to admire Weizmann and he was a valuable supporter of him and his Zionist mission for the rest of his long life. The newspaper of which he was editor faithfully supported Weizmann and all he stood for. He became a great champion of Jewish causes. He was responsible for arranging for Weizmann to meet many influential men that would impact on the subject. He was one of the founders of the British Palestine Committee formed in 1915 whose mission was “to reset the ancient glories of the Jewish nation in the freedom of a new British Dominion in Palestine”.

Herbert Sidebotham (1872-1940) was a colleague of Scott’s on the Manchester Guardian with whom he worked for over twenty years. He became convinced that Zionism was the answer to the Jewish problem and he was also one of the founding members of the British Palestine Committee. He was a regular contributor to its journal Palestine. He wrote a great deal on Zionism and was responsible for influencing the opinions of many thinking people in Britain on the subject. He published a book entitled England and Palestine during World War I and his later book Great Britain and Palestine is full of praise of Zionist achievements. In it he pointed out that in less than twenty years the Zionists had brought Palestine from the Middle Ages into the 20th century transforming the country from a museum of antiquity to a vigourous modern community. Sidebotham was involved in some of the discussions when the final draft for the Declaration was being drawn up. Some Zionists wanted to have a more powerful statement than one simply specifying that the aim should be a Jewish national home in Palestine but that it should specify that the country should become a Jewish state and he proposed a version that referred specifically to a Jewish state as well as to a Jewish home. He did, however, then concede that a Jewish state did not mean an exclusive one.

Lt-Commander Joseph Montaque Kenworthy (1886-1953) (later Lord Strabolgi) was another convinced Zionist. He became Liberal MP later moving to the Labour Party until his elevation to the House of Lords and he was a strong supporter of the movement. He was a prominent member of the pro-Palestine Committeee formed in the House of Commons after World War I and he frequently spoke at Zionist meetings. He visited Palestine in 1926 and saw the “wonderful changes brought about by the energies and money of the Zionist movement”. To him the 1930 White Paper was mischevious because it blamed the Jewish settlers for getting killed by murderous Arab mobs. In the Second World War he headed a committee that pressed the Government to form a Jewish fighting force in Palestine.

Colonel Walter Eliot (1888-1958) who served in British Cabinets from 1932-1940 was a supporter of Zionism for many years dating back to 1927 when he came under Blanche Dugdale’s influence. He was a religious man who believed that the Biblical prophecies concerning Zion would inevitably be fulfilled. He was a personal friend of Weizmann and visited Palestine three times as well as once being Weizmann’s guest in Israel. He was a lone voice in the Cabinet and was said to be the one there who represented the Jewish point of view. Although a member of the Cabinet Committee on Palestine, many of his collegues regarded him as being too heavily tainted with Zionism to be trusted with inside information. Nevertheless, he never saw the need to resign from the Government over its Palestinian policies that hardened as war came nearer and he was not invited to join Churchill’s first Administration in 1940.

And what of T.E. Lawrence (1888-1935)? It seems incredible that the man given the title ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ could harbour Zionist sympathies but there is much evidence to support this view. Chaim Weizmann wrote that “his relationship to the Zionist movement was a very positive one … and he has mistakenly been represented as anti-Zionist” and added that Lawrence believed that the Jews would be of great help to the Arabs who stood to gain much from a Jewish National Home in Palestine. In September 1920, in fact, Lawrence wrote that he believed that Jewish immigration would be of benefit to the Arab population in Palestine. Lawrence and Weizmann were always on friendly terms and in recent years many books have been written from an anti-Zionist standpoint accusing Lawrence of being sympathetic to Zionism.. Suleiman Mousa, a distinguished Arab historian, is highly critical of Lawrence’s role in the politics of the Middle East of his time suggesting he sympathised strongly with the Zionists and the man who was secretary to Emir Feisal, the leader of the Arab revolt against Turkey, wrote that Lawrence “played an important part in helping the Zionists since he viewed Zionism with unmistakable favour”. Another key contemporary Arab writer has labelled him as a “supporter of Zionist designs in Palestine”. Aaron Aaronsohn the NILI leader, on the contrary, thought that he was “plainly hostile” to Palestinian Jewry although there are suggestions that S.A., the mysterious dedicatee of Seven Pillars of Wisdom, whose identity still continues to puzzle scholars may have been the tragic Sarah Aaronsohn, Aaron’s sister, who committed suicide after being tortured unmercifully by the Turks. Lawrence was an enigma and it is likely that he supported Arab ambitions as well as Jewish ones believing there to be no contradiction in taking this view.