B-E-J-O
INTERNATIONAL

With Arab help, the British took Palestine from the Ottomans at the end of World War I in 1917-18. The Arabs willingly helped the British because they were promised independence after the war.

Unfortunately, Britain had also made promises to the Zionist-Jews -- and the two sets of promises were scarcely compatible. In the Sykes-Picot agreement made with France and Russia in 1916, Britain had promised to divide the regions and rule it with its allies. In 1917 in the notorious Balfour Declaration, Britain promised, in exchange for Jewish help, a Jewish "national home" in Palestine. The exact meaning of "national home" was never clearly explained!

The Balfour Declaration of 2 November 1917 was originally a letter sent from the British Foreign Secretary, Arthur James Balfour, to Edmond J. Rothschild, a prominent British Jew and supporter of Zionism. The letter stated the British government's support for "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people."

It made a further commitment on the part of the British government to make "the best endeavours 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."

With the Balfour Declaration, Britain's aim was to win the support of Jews for the Allied cause in World War I -- both those Jews in nations at war and those in neutral nations such as the United States. On 24 July 1922 the declaration was incorporated into the League of Nations mandate for Palestine which enumerated the terms under which Britain was given responsibility for temporary administration of the country on behalf of the Jews and Arabs living there.

The mandate lasted from 1922-1948, during which time the British found themselves, because of their contradictory promises, in a most difficult and untenable situation -- but one primarily of their own making. On one hand, the Zionists anticipated large numbers of Jews immigrating to Palestine and even began to speak of the establishment of a Jewish state. On the other hand, the Palestinians feared dispossession at the hands of the Zionists and naturally rejected British promises to deliver their country into the hands of what were, by virtually any definition, outsiders. Anti-Zionist attacks took place in both Jerusalem and Jaffa in 1920 and 1921, and a British policy statement in 1922 denied Zionist claims to all of Palestine, limited Jewish immigration but nonetheless supported the idea of a Jewish national home. The British proposed setting up a legislative council as had been done in many of their other territories, but the Palestinians, upon learning of how this was to be done, rejected the idea as discriminatory. Despite British policy and its back-and-forth nature, first supporting one side and then the other, Jewish immigration did in fact increase. Indeed, after the Nazi victory in Germany in 1933, immigration rose sharply and in 1935 over 60,000 Jews came into Palestine. An Arab revolt based on fears of Jewish domination broke out in 1936 and lasted intermittently until 1939. By that date, Britain had once again limited Jewish immigration and purchases of land and by 1940, the struggle for Palestine had abated for the duration of World War II. After the war, the struggle resumed and though Britain refused to admit 100,000 Jewish survivors of Nazi death-camps, large numbers gained entry to Palestine by illegal means. In 1947, Britain declared the mandate unworkable and passed the problem over to the United Nations.
END
 
  (continued)

INTRODUCTION

Zionist propaganda has sought to endow the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate for Palestine
with a sacrosanct character. Both documents are represented as solemn expressions of the
conscience of the British people in particular, and the civilized world in general, as if it must not
be questioned. The Mandate in particular is represented as the conception of a majestic and
disinterested League of Nations and as a solemn duty laid upon Britain by the League and
accepted by her in a spirit of devotion to the ideals of international obligation.

In another pamphlet issued by this Office and entitled "What Was Promised in Palestine," we
have dealt with the question of the exact meaning of these two documents and the validity of the claims based upon their texts by the Zionists. In this pamphlet we propose to give an account of their inception, an account which will show how the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate were conceived, by whom they were actually drafted and in what manner they came to be adopted and promulgated. When all these facts are known it will be seen that neither document is entitled to the moral respect which is claimed for it: that both were Zionist conceptions, that both were drafted by the Zionist leaders and foisted on the British people and the League of Nations by what can only be described as a conspiracy in which certain British and other politicians took part as the friends and collaborators of the Zionist leaders, a conspiracy whose object was to dispose of a country in the interests of a foreign movement without any reference to the wishes of the people of the country themselves, a conspiracy, which like all conspiracies, could only succeed if it proceed in stealth under cover of darkness until its object was achieved so that the world should not know the real facts and full implications until it was faced with a fait accompli. Above all, it will be seen that a large body of eminent British Jews and the leading representatives of Jewry in England at that time saw through this conspiracy and disapproved of it from every point of view in the conviction that the realisation of its objects, apart from involving a grave act of injustice towards the Arabs, would also be prejudicial to Britain and to the interests of the Jew, as Jews, in England and other Countries. END1

It was in 1914 that the Zionist leaders in England and particularly Dr. Weizmann and Lord
Rothschild began to work on certain members of the British Cabinet with a view to securing the
British Government's support for the creation under British auspices and British protection of a
Jewish State in Palestine, when as we expected the War (World War No. 1) should end in the
defeat and dismemberment of Turkey as Germany's ally. The most amazing feature of the
meetings and deliberations that took place on the subject between the Zionist leaders and their
friends in the British Government on the one hand, and between the British Ministers themselves
inside the Cabinet on the other, is the deliberate and almost total exclusion of the Arabs, i.e.,
the people who at that moment happened to be the owners and inhabitants of Palestine - from
the picture. The Zionist project and the various proposals for its realisation were considered,
formulated and propounded without generally any notice being taken of the fact that the Country
which was thus to be presented to the Zionist movement had its own people and that its people
would, like any other people in the world, have the strongest objection to their land being
disposed of in the proposed manner. It is impossible to read the record of these meetings and
discussions without coming to the conclusion that those engaged in them were either utterly
ignorant of the facts, or obstinately and immorally determined to ignore them. Sometimes, indeed,
it is impossible not to conclude that deliberate dishonesty was practised in order to conceal the
truth. The phrasing of certain clauses of the Balfour Declaration itself is incapable of any other
interpretation, but more of this later. We must first give a summary of the event that led up to
it.

 While the dilettante and romantic idealism of Lord Balfour was being enlisted by Dr. Wiezmann
in support of his project, the Zionist cause was taken up from within the Cabinet by Sir Herbert
Samuel, now Lord Samuel, himself a Jew. Sir Herbert Samuel opened the subject to Sir Edward
Grey, the then Foreign Secretary, and to Mr. Lloyd George. An extract from a lecture delivered
by him in 1935 (i.e., some 20 years after the event) to the Jewish Historical Society gives an
interesting indication of the state of mind in which he began to work for The Zionist Cause, and
sheds a most revealing light on the real objects of the Zionist movements, as already entertained
in 1914. "I soon arrived," said Sir Herbert Samuel in 1935, describing his attitude to the Zionist
project in 1914, "at the definite conclusions that if, as we all anticipated, the War ended in the
victory of the allies, Palestine ought undoubtedly to be separated from the Turkish Empire; that
the opportunity should be taken to facilitate the establishment of a great autonomous Jewish
community there; and that this ought to be done under some form of Jewish protectorate".

Opening the subject to Sir Edward Facilitate in 1914, he said, "Perhaps there might be an
opportunity for the fulfillment of the ancient aspiration of the Jewish people and the restoration
there (in Palestine) of a Jewish state:. After expatiating to the Foreign Secretary on how a
Jewish state in Palestine might become the centre of a new culture, Sir Herbert went on to point
out that the proximity to Egypt of this Jewish state "would render its goodwill to England, a
matter of importance to the British Empire".

Sir Herbert Samuel, however, knew the facts sufficiently to realise that the execution of his
project would be no easy matter. He knew that Palestine belonged to another people. He knew
that its people would resist the Zionist project. He was too honest and too realistic to pretend
that the Arabs did not exist or would not oppose the scheme he was trying to get the British
Government to adopt, but he did his best to distort the facts by using a remarkable phrase to
describe the fact that Palestine was inhabited by a people of its own. "The building up of the new
State from the foundations", he acknowledged in his interview with Sir Edward Grey, "was, of
course, an undertaking of the most formidable character, especially in view of the elements which
were to be found in the present population of Palestine". It would have been astonishing if the
Foreign Secretary had inferred from this phrase that the "elements" were an Arab population of
over 600,000 which formed 91% of the people of the country. Nor does it appear from his reply
to Sir Herbert Samuel that the Foreign Secretary had any idea, derived from his own
independent sources of information, that Palestine was inhabited by an almost entirely Arab
population. He said that the idea which Sir Herbert Samuel had put to him had always had "a
strong sentimental attraction for him", that "its historical appeal was very strong;" that "he was
quite favourable to the proposal and would be ready to work for it if the opportunity arose", and
added that "if any proposals were put forward by France or any other Power with regard to
Syria, it would be important not to acquiesce in any plan which would be inconsistent with the
creation of a Jewish State in Palestine".

The language of the Foreign Secretary was the authentic voice of power politics in Big Power
dealings. all that worried him was how to square the rival claims of France with the project he
was beginning to entertain. He had no thought for what the Syrians themselves would feel about
it. In fact , he went on cooly to ask Sir Herbert Samuel whether he thought that Syria (meaning
the northern part of Syria) should go with Palestine. Sir Herbert declined Syria on the grounds
that it would be inadvisable  to include in the Jewish state such places as Beirut and Damascus
"since they contained a large non-Jewish population which could not be assimilated !" The
assimilation of the large non-Jewish population Palestine, of the 91% Arab part of this
population, did not apparently seem to him a task beyond the digestive powers of the Zionist
state.

Some time later, however, Sir Herbert Samuel did come to the conclusion that an autonomous
Jewish state was impracticable at the moment. "In the conditions that prevailed, 5/6ths of the
population of Palestine being Arabs", he wrote, "such a solution could not be adopted". It is
significant that Sir Herbert Samuel did not consider that a Jewish state would be illegitimate. He
only found it "impracticable" as an immediate proposition in view of the fact that the country was
almost entirely populated by Arabs. The solution to which he now turned was "the establishment
of British control, together with the fostering of Jewish immigration and the force upon the
new Jewish community in Palestine of the broadest autonomy that the practical conditions would
allow". This amounted to establishing a state of things in Palestine out of which the Jewish state
would gradually come into being as the balance of the population was artificially and forcibly
altered by immigration.

Sir Herbert Samuel's next move was to approach Mr. Lloyd George whose volatile Celtic
imagination, conditioned by his conformist Old Testament outlook, was attracted by the idea of
bringing the Jews back to Palestine. Like Lord Balfour and Sir Edward Facilitate, "he apparently did not know or was not troubled by the fact that Palestine had been an Arab country for nearly
1,500 years and that it was that moment inhabited by an Arab population. Anyhow, there was no
more mention of the Arabs in the exchanges that took place between him and Sir Herbert Samuel
than there had been in the previous conversations with BALFOUR and Grey. The fact that the
presence of an indigenous population in Palestine might constitute an obstacle to the Zionist
project was not even hinted at.

The first skeptical reaction, the first objection to this scheme as something fantastic in which
the British Government should not get involved came from the cool and realistic brain of Mr.
Asquith. Commenting on a memorandum in which Sir Herbert Samuel had elaborated his scheme
for the benefit of the Cabinet in January, 1915, the then Prime Minister wrote: "I have just
received from Herbert Samuel a memorandum headed "the Future of Palestine". He argues at
considerable length and with some vehemence in favour of the British annexation of Palestine, a
country the size of Wales, much of it barren mountains and part of its waterless. He thinks we
might plant in this not very promising territory about three or four million European Jews, and
that this would have a good effect upon those who are left behind. It reads almost like a new
edition of Tancred brought up to date. I confess I am not attracted by this proposed addition to
our responsibilities. But it is a curious illustration of Dizzy's favourite maxim that "race is
everything", to find this almost lyrical outburst proceeding from the well-ordered and methodical
brain of H.S".

Another unfavourable reaction came from the British Ambassador in Paris, Lord Bertie, who
commented as follows on the project when put to him by Rothschild and Dr. Weizmann: "Edmond
de Rothschild came this morning and afterwards sent a Russian co-religionist established in
Manchester to "talk" about what I think is an absurd scheme, though they say it has the
approval of Grey, Lloyd George, Samuel and Crewe. They did not mention Lord Reading. It
contemplates the formation of Palestine into an Israelite state under the protectorate of England,
France, or Russia, preferably of England. They did not think that Russia or France would raise
objection . . . . The scheme-maker would be ready to leave the custody of the Holy Places, and
even old Jerusalem to an international body".

But in spite of these minor rebuffs the campaign went forward. Sir Herbert Samuel's
memorandum, having been distributed to all member of the Cabinet, was left to take effect in
their minds and soon Sir Herbert was able to record that it "has attracted a considerable body
of support among Ministers". Mrs. Dugdale, Lord Balfour's niece and biographer gives us another
glimpse of the workings of Sir Edward Grey's mind at the time (1915). "He was", she says, "in
full sympathy with the Zionist ideal, but was afraid lest mention of a British Protectorate over
Palestine might offend the French, and offend also some English Liberal opinion. The Liberal
Cabinet would not be likely to commit themselves to any responsibility for Palestine. At the same
time they did not want to see it in the hands of any other Great Power. They might favour the
organisation of a Jewish Commonwealth there as an independent political unit". Again, not a
thought for the Arabs, but merely the concern of one big Power about the susceptibilities of
another. The French of course had to be considered, but apparently not the people of the
country themselves.

Shortly afterwards, Dr. Weizmann put on paper that he thought it would be a satisfactory solution
to help Sir Edward Grey out of his difficulties. "If Great Britain", he wrote, "does not wish
anybody else to have Palestine, this means that she will have to watch it and stop any penetration
of another Power. Such a course involved as much responsibility as would be involved by a British Protectorate over Palestine, with the sole difference that watching is a much less efficient
preventive than an actual Protectorate. I therefore thought that the middle course could be
adopted; viz., the Jews take over the country. The whole burden of organisation falls on them,
but for the next 10 or 15 years they work under a temporary British Protectorate".

Thus under the double operation of motives deriving from misguided humanitarianism and
considerations of British imperial interests, tenuously held in check by a somewhat reluctant
liberalism, the alliance between the Zionist leaders and British imperialism was beginning to take
shape.

A double event took place about this time which gave a strong fillip to the process. Lord Balfour
became First Lord of the Admiralty and soon afterwards Dr. Weizmann, who had been
experimenting successfully in the manufacture of high explosives, was himself appointed to the
Admiralty to work on a process which he had discovered for the provision of acetone for cordite.
Thus the two principal architects of the Anglo-Zionist alliance were drawn into close personal
contact and one day after an interview connected with official business Lord Balfour remarked,
"You know, Dr. Weizmann, if the Allies win the war you may get your Jerusalem".

Meanwhile, the activities of the Zionist leaders continued unabated. Intensively and extensively
they canvassed their project among influential Englishmen, appealing to every motive that could
commend it either to their generous hearts or to their calculating heads. Gradually and through
endless repetition, the idea which had seemed so fantastic to Asquith began to seem familiar and
reasonable and was before long accepted as a possible basis for policy. It was weighed and
examined and discussed from every conceivable  point of view except that of its effect on the
people of the country where the idea was to become a fact. for a long time the Arabs continued
to be rigoursly excluded from the picture; and with this fundamental omission the reasons of the
picture increased in the eyes of the painters and the public, day by day.

Incredible as it may seem, this state of things continued even while the British Government
through its official representative in Cairo was negotiating an agreement with the Arabs,
promising them independence in a region which included Palestine. It continued even after the
agreement had been concluded. It is impossible to believe that his shocking conduct was the
result of conscious duplicity on the part of the British Government as a whole. The main
explanation must be sought in that ignorance of the facts from which most, if not all, the
members of the Cabinet, including the Foreign Secretary himself, suffered; in the lack of
co-ordination which prevailed at that time between the different agencies of the British
Government, even such agencies as functioned nominally under one Ministerial Chief; and lastly in the harassing strain imposed upon Ministers by the War. But however charitable one may try to
be, there are certain facts which cannot be explained away in this manner. Not to mention the
Arabs at all was one thing; to mention them suddenly in an official document as the intended
victims of a confessed conspiracy was another, and this was exactly what happened at a certain
stage in the proceedings. After a long period of complete exclusion, the Arabs were brought into
the picture by the Foreign Secretary himself. Cabling a message to the British Ambassador in
Petrograd, the object of which was to sound the Russian Government on the Zionist project, Sir
Edward Facilitate put the case as follows: - "The attention of H.M. Government has recently
been drawn to the question of Jewish colonisation in Palestine.

"Although, as is known, many Jews are indifferent to the idea of Zionism, a numerous and most
influential section of them in all countries would highly appreciate the proposal of an agreement
concerning Palestine which would fully satisfy Jewish aspirations".

"If the point of view set forth above is correct, it will be clear that by means of utilising the
Zionist idea, important political results might be achieved. One of these would be the conversion
to the side of the Allies of Jewish elements in the East, in the U.S.A. and other places, whose
present attitude towards the cause of the Allies is, to a considerable extent, hostile.

"Mr. Lucien Wolf has defined Jewish aspirations in Palestine in the following manner: "If as a
result of the war Palestine should fall within the sphere of French and British interests, the
French and British Governments will not fail to take into consideration the historic interest of
Jewish population equal political rights with other inhabitants, religious and civil freedom, such
municipal privileges in colonies and towns as would appear necessary, as well as reasonable
facilities for colonising and immigration".

"The only object of H.M. Government is to devise some agreement which will be sufficiently
attractive to the majority of Jews to facilitate the conclusion of a transaction securing Jewish
support. Having this consideration in view, it appears to H.M. Government that if the scheme
provided for enabling the Jews, when their colonies in Palestine are sufficiently strong to be able
to compete with the Arab population, to take in hand the administration of the internal affairs of
this region (excluding Jerusalem and the Holy Places), then the agreement would be much more
attractive for the majority of Jews. H.M. Government would not wish to express a preference
for this or another solution of the question. However, it is informed that an international
protectorate would meet with opposition on behalf of influential Jewish circles".

This document was issued from the Foreign Office with 10 weeks of the conclusion of Britain's
Treaty with the Arabs. In its last paragraph the entire Zionist plot to which certain British
Minsters, including the Foreign Secretary, were allowing themselves to become a party, stands
crystal-clear. It was just this, that under a British protectorate, an invasion of Palestine by
Jewish immigrants should take place with the deliberate intention of enabling the Jews in time to
take the country away from its people. The cynicism of the scheme is, curiously enough,
somewhat saved from the appearance of utter depravity by the astonishing naivete of the
statement which propounds it.
 
 

3] THE ANTI-ZIONIST JEWS

But something else of considerable interest comes out of these documents. It is the revelation
for the first time of the profound divergence between the Zionist and the non-Zionist Jews of
that time, the difference between the fantastic and immoral designs of the Zionists on the one
hand and the reasonable and legitimate aspirations entertained by sane Jews like Mr. Lucien
Wolf. All that Mr. Lucien Wolf asked for in his definition of Jewish aspiration in this connection
was that the Jewish population should enjoy equal political rights with the other inhabitants,
religious and civil freedom, such municipal privileges in colonies and towns as would appear
necessary, as well as reasonable facilities for colonisation and immigration. Here was no plot to
take Palestine away from its people or to give the Jews in it a predominate position, no
suggestion of immediate or ultimate political sovereignty, no claim to lead either openly or
surreptitiously to the formation of a Jewish state. But this was not enough for the Zionist and it
was the Zionists and not Mr. Lucien Wolf and the other Jews of his way of thinking who had the
ear of the British Government and voiced Grey and other members of the Cabinet that only a
scheme calculated to lead to a Jewish state would be sufficiently attractive for the majority of
Jews, to "facilitate the conclusion of a transaction securing Jewish support". And this was a time
when the anti-Zionist Jews were the leading figures and representative spokesmen of British
Jewry. Mr. Lucien Wolf himself was the spokesman of the Anglo-Jewish Association and of the
Board of Deputies of British Jews, the two chief institutions representing British Jews. If the
British Government had accepted Mr. Wolf's formula instead of listening to the political Zionists,
there need have been no Palestine British Jewry provided for something which could have been
realised in Palestine without any encroachment on the rights of the Arabs and without any
violation of Britain's undertaking to them. Arab consent might have easily been won for such a
scheme and the whole bitter conflict of the last thirty years with its still incalculable
consequences avoided. But the British Government rejected this chance and gradually committed
themselves to the cause of political Zionism.

Mr. Lucien Wolf, however, and those other leaders of British Jewry who thought like him, did
not abandon the struggle. As the programme of political Zionism took shape and as bits of
information leaked out revealing the progress which the Zionist leaders were making in winning the British Government over to it, the opponents of political Zionism among British Jews became
alarmed at its dangerous implications. On May 24th, 1917, Messrs. Alexander and Claude
Montefiori, Presidents respectively of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and of the
Anglo-Jewish Association, wrote a letter to the Times in the name of the Conjoint Committee of
these two bodies, which was a manifesto of protest remarkable for the clear-sightedness with
which it exposed the fallacies and dangers of political Zionism. In this letter, after declaring
their adherence to Mr. Lucien Wolf's formula, the writers went on to say that the
"establishment of a Jewish nationality in Palestine, founded on the theory of Jewish
homelessness, must have the effect throughout the world of stamping the Jews as strangers in
their native lands and of undermining their hard-won positions as citizens and nationals of those
lands". They pointed out that the theories of political Zionism undermined the religious basis of
Jewry to which the only alternative would be:-"a secular Jewish nationality, recruited on some
loose and obscure principle of race and of ethnographic peculiarity. But this would not be Jewish
in any spiritual sense, and its establishment in Palestine would be a denial of all the ideals and
hopes by which the survival of Jewish life in that country commends itself to the Jewish
conscience and Jewish sympathy. On these grounds the Conjoint Committee of the Board of
Deputies and the Anglo-Jewish Association deprecates earnestly the national proposals of the
Zionists.

"The second part in the Zionist programme which has aroused the misgivings of the Conjoint
Committee is the proposal to invest the Jewish settlers (in Palestine) with certain special rights in
excess of those enjoyed by the rest of the population . . . . In all the countries in which Jews
live the principle of equal rights for all religious denominations is vital to them. Were they to set
an example in Palestine of disregarding this principle they would convict themselves of having
appealed to it for purely selfish motives. In the countries in which they are still struggling for
equal rights they would find themselves hopelessly compromised. . . . The proposal is the more
inadmissible because the Jews are and probably long will remain a minority of the population of
Palestine, and might involve them in the bitterest feuds with their neighbours of other races and
religions, which would severely retard their progress and find deplorable echoes throughout the
Orient".

About the same time Dr. Weizmann speaking to a Jewish Conference in London made the following statement:-

"I shall try to outline, as much as is possible to do so, what are our plans and how we think we
shall be able to carry them out . . . . One reads constantly in the press and one hears from
one's friends, both Jewish and non-Jewish, that it is the endeavour of the Zionist movement
immediately to create a Jewish state in Palestine. Our American friends went further than that
and they have even determined the form of that state by advocating a Jewish republic. While
heartily welcoming all these demonstrations as a genuine manifestation of the Jewish national will, we cannot consider them as safe statesmanship. . . . The conditions are not yet ripe for the
setting up of a state ad hoc. States must be built up slowly, gradually, systematically and
patiently. We therefore say that while the creation of a Jewish commonwealth in Palestine is our
final ideal - an ideal for which the whole of the Zionist Organisation is working - the way to
achieve it lies through a series of intermediate stages. And one of these intermediary stages
which I hope is going to come about as a result of the war is that the fair country of Palestine
will be protected by such a mighty and a just Power as Great Britain. Under the wing of this
Power, Jews will be able to develop and to set up the administrative machinery which, while not
interfering with the legitimate interest of the non-Jewish population, would enable us to carry out
the Zionist scheme. I am entitled to say that His Majesty's Governments is ready to support our
plans".

This speech was made in May, 1917, two-and-a-half years before the League of Nations was
born and nearly three years before the Palestine Mandate was conferred on Great Britain. All the
chicanery about the Mandate, all the humbug about "Britains's obligations" stand clearly exposed
in it.

Now, in answer to the Alexander-Montefiori protest, Dr. Weizmann himself wrote to the Times
denying that the Zionists "are demanding in Palestine monopolies or exclusive privileges". No
monopolies or exclusive privileges, only a deep-laid plot, as the Doctor himself had explained to
the Jewish Conference a few days before, to make of the whole of Palestine, "through a series
of intermediate stages" a Jewish state!

A few days after the publication of Dr. Weizmann's letter a further manifesto was sent to the
Times by 18 prominent Jews of British birth who declared their solidarity with Messrs.
Alexander and Montefiori. Amongst these were Lord Swaythling, Sir Matthew Nathan, Isidore
Spielmann, Ernest Franklin, Laurie Magnus, and Israel Gollancz. The Zionist opposition counter
-attacked at a meeting of the Conjoint Committee. There was a hot debate and resolution
disapproving the Alexander-Motefiori protest was passed by a majority of five votes, 56 to 51.
Mr. Alexander resigned his presidency of the Board of Deputies both the Anglo-Jewish
Association stood by Mr. Montefiori. The only Jewish member of the British Cabinet at that
time, Mr. Edwin Montagu (famous in connection with the Montagu-Chelmford reforms in India) threw his entire weight against the Zionist scheme, as being one likely to cause great harm to world-Jewry.

Meanwhile, the Zionist leaders were being also very active in Washington, Paris and Rome. In
America, where ignorance of the Arabs and their existence was even greater than in England,
they had succeeded in winning a large measure of support for their scheme. President Wilson,
looking at it entirely from the Jewish point of view with a total unawareness of what it would
imply for the Arabs, had given it his blessings, and the American Government lent its support to
the Zionist campaign in London. Finally when things had crystallized sufficiently in London and
Washington, Zionist missions were (on the advice of the pro-Zionist members of the British
Government) sent to Paris and Rome to win over the French and Italian Governments.

For its part, the British Government supported by America made representations to all its Allies
in the sense that a declaration of sympathy for Zionist aims by the British Government would by
securing the whole-hearted support of "American Jewry for the Allied cause, be of great help to
the common war effort."

The ground had now been prepared and everything was ready. About the middle of the summer
of 1917, Lord Rothschild and Dr.Weizmann called together on Lord Balfour at the Foreign Office
and in the words of Mrs. Edgar Dugdale, "put it to him that the time for a definite declaration
of support and encouragement had come". Lord Balfour asked the visitors for "a draft that he
would put before the War Cabinet for sanction". The Zionists at once set about preparing their
draft in consultation with the American branch of the movement. A considerable number of drafts
were prepared in this way but they were all too long and elaborate for the liking of the British
Government who, in the words of the report issued later by the Zionist Organization, "did not
want to commit themselves to more than a general statement of principle". A shorter formula was
therefore asked for and on July 18th Lord Rothschild forwarded to Lord Balfour what was
intended to be the Balfour Declaration. These were its terms:-

"His Majesty's Government, after considering the aims of the Zionist Organization, accepts the
principle of recognizing Palestine as the National Home of the Jewish people and the right of the
Jewish people to build up its national life in Palestine under a protection to be established at the
conclusion of peace, following upon the successful issue of the War.

"His Majesty's Government regards as essential for the realization of this principle a grant of
internal autonomy to the Jewish nationality in Palestine, freedom of immigration for Jews, and
the establishment of a Jewish National Colonizing Corporation for the resettlement and economic
development of the country.

"The conditions and forms of the internal autonomy and a charter for the Jewish National
Colonizing Corporation should, in the view of His Majesty's Government be elaborated in detail
and determined with the representatives of the Zionist Organization".

Thus the aim of the Zionists clearly was to commit the British Government to a recognition of all
Palestine as the National Home and to secure internal autonomy for the Jewish nationality from
the start. Whether without any intervention from outside the British Cabinet would have accepted
this formula cannot be determined. But they were not left free to act entirely on their own
initiative. The anti-Zionist British Jews having learned of the proposed text of the declaration
made a vigorous protest against it to the Cabinet.

As a result of this move the Cabinet had the Declaration re-drafted. The new formula was:-

1) His Majesty's Government accepts the principle that Palestine should be reconstituted as the
National Home of the Jewish people.

2) His majesty's Government will use its best endeavours to secure the achievement of this object and will discuss the necessary methods and means with the Zionist Organization.

The anti -Zionist British Jews, however, found this draft as objectionable as, and opposed it as
resolutely as they had opposed its predecessor. And in fact on the most crucial point of all the
second formula was no better than the first. Both provided for the arbitrary seizure of Palestine
by the Zionists. Neither took any notice of the presence of the Arabs in Palestine.

Faced once more with the difficulty of issuing on behalf of the Jews a document against which
Jews fought with might and main, the British Prime Minister and his Foreign Secretary were
compelled to have the Declaration remodelled again.

In the new and third draft, Palestine was no longer to be the National Home of the Jewish
people. Instead the Government signified its desire to establish "a national home for the Jewish
people in Palestine". But the anti -Zionist Jews, who had forced the Government to make this
modification, were still perturbed and continued to protest on behalf of British Jewry. Their
chief objection was to the maintenance in the text of the word "national". They rightly saw that
"national" was a key word. They feared the implications of this word, seeing in it the germ of a
Jewish State, of something which they were convinced would be extremely harmful to world
Jewry.

Despite their efforts, however, the word "national" was kept in succeeding drafts by the
Government. The political Zionists insisted upon it and were supported by their friends in the
Cabinet. But the anti-Zionists were still far from abandoning the struggle. Indeed so successful,
for some time, was their opposition, led from within the Cabinet by Edwin Montagu, Secretary
for India, that they almost carried the day. Balfour was stalemated, and for a brief period the
British Government was on the point of dropping its pro-Zionist policy. Shortly afterwards,
however, Montagu had to go to India, and with him out of the way Balfour resumed his
offensive. To speed matters up, a memorandum, asking for the Declaration, was handed to
Balfour by Lord Rothschild and Dr. Weizmann. In this memorandum it was urged that "the
problem be considered in the light of imperial interests and of the principles for which the
Entente stands. . . We therefore now humbly pray that this Declaration may be granted to us
and this would enable us to further consolidate Jewish opinion in the Entente countries and to
counteract all the demoralizing influence which the enemy Press is endeavouring to exercise by
holding out vague promises to the Jews".

The meaning of the last sentences of this memorandum is transparent. It was almost a threat, a
warning that if Britain did not come forth with the declaration she might be forestalled by
Germany who would thus capture the goodwill of the Jews for her cause in the war. Pressure was also being maintained from America. The President, speaking now with the authority of the
principal Power engaged in the war against Germany, sent a personal message to the British
Government intimating his agreement with the idea of a pro-Zionist announcement. And so the
Zionists carried the day on the 2nd November, 1917, Lord Balfour, as Foreign Secretary,
addressed to Lord Rothchild a letter which had been almost entirely written by Lord Rothchild
and his friends, that is to say (written by) the Zionist Jews, defining what was to be the policy of the British Government with regard to Zionism in Palestine, and which was to become known as the Balfour Declaration.

This was its text:-
THE FOREIGN OFFICE,
2nd November,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 endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this
object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which might 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 shall be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.

Yours sincerely,

ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR. (British Foreign Secretary)

It will be easily seen from a comparison of the text of the Declaration as it was issued with the
previous drafts which we have quoted, that the policy which the British Government now
announced its willingness to pursue, was far less committal than what they would have undertaken if any of the preceding formulae had been adopted. Not only was "a national home of the Jewish people" but also it was now stipulated (someone at the Foreign Office must have suddenly remembered the Arabs) that the process of establishing this national home should not be allowed to prejudice the rights of the people of Palestine.

Yet there is so much dishonesty and duplicity (it is impossible to avoid using such words) both in the wording of this safeguarding clause and in its purport that it does little indeed to redeem the drafters of their previous sins. If the Arabs were not mentioned at all in the former drafts,
they were mentioned here in such a way as to give an entirely false idea of their position in the
country and their indubitable right to it. They, who constituted practically the entire population of the country (to wit, more than 90%); they, who as Arabs had occupied and owned the country for more than 1300 years, were now called "the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine" in order, presumably (there is no other possible explanation) that the world might think of them as a few unimportant minority groups occupying a subordinate position to the Jews. This clause by purporting to protect the rights of the Arabs as "existing communities" in reality aimed at robbing them of their right to the country as its people. As Mr. J.M.N. Jeffries says in his book "Palestine: the Reality", "the population of Palestine was an Arab population with a dash of Jew. . . . Before this unpalatable reality what did the framers of the Balfour Declaration do? By an altogether abject subterfuge, under colour of protecting Arab interests, they set out to conceal the fact that the Arabs to all intents constituted the population of the country. They called them the "non-Jewish communities in Palestine". They called the multitude the non-few; they called the 670, 000 the non-60,000; out of a hundred they called the 91 the non-9. You might just as well call the British people the non-continental communities in Great Britain! It would be as suitable to define the mass of working men as "the non-idling communities in the world", or the healthy as "the non-bedridden elements amongst sleepers", or the sane as the "non-lunatic section of thinkers", or the grass of the countryside as the "non-dandelion portion of the pastures".

But leaving aside this shocking wording and looking merely at the implications of this safeguarding clause, there is only one possible inference that can be drawn from it, and only one possible judgment that can be passed on it, namely that, if it was meant honestly, it was sufficient to nullify the rest of the Declaration, at least in the sense in which it was understood by the Zionists. The British Government knew that what the Zionists wanted would have constituted a deadly encroachment on Arab rights. They promised to help the Zionists achieve their aim, provided that nothing was done to enable them to achieve it.

4] THE MANDATE

The history of how the Mandate for Palestine was "granted" to Great Britain, of how its
purposes were defined, and its text was drawn up and made to incorporate the Balfour
Declaration is merely a repetition or a continuation of that related in the first part of this
pamphlet. The Mandate was just the appropriate means devised to give effect to the Balfour
Declaration, and it was devised in the same way and the same people and for the same ends as
that document. It was devised under the influence of the Zionist leaders and their friends and
collaborators in London and New York, and to all intents and purposes in the total absence of the Arabs and without any honest thought being given to their indisputable position and rights in Palestine.

As we have seen, when the scheme to hand Palestine to the Zionists was hatched in London and New York in 1916 and 1917, it was decided - and this was long before the end of the war and the birth of the League of Nations and its Mandates - that Britain should occupy Palestine after the war and carry out the policy envisaged in the Balfour Declaration. This was what the Zionists wanted. Their whole scheme indeed depended on it, since it was clear that the National Home would not be established unless one of the Great Powers occupied Palestine and helped the Zionists to colonize it under its protection. For various reasons, England had been cast for this role by the Zionist leaders with the approval of America and the other Allied Powers. For her part Britain was not averse to the scheme, since it suited her Imperial interests that she should occupy Palestine. Even before the war Britain and France, anticipating the demise of the Sick Man of Europe had begun tentatively to stake their claims to the succession. It was generally assumed that when the Ottoman Empire broke up, France would secure Syria and the Lebanon, and Britain Palestine and Iraq. It is true that under the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916 an international administration was envisaged for Palestine, but Britain was not keen on this idea and Zionist scheme, requiring an exclusively British occupation of the country, suited her admirably.

When the war, however, came to an end, and the League of Nations appeared on the scene with such new ideas as the Mandatory system, it became necessary to camouflage the old realities with new phrases. Instead of Britain and France simply occupying these countries, they had to be given "Mandates" for them emanating from the League of Nations, but as the Council of the League of Nations was almost identical with the Supreme Allied Council which represented the Great Powers, this did not entail any difficulties, or any change in what had already been or was about to be decided by the Great Powers in pursuit of their interests and traditional policies.
 

True, the Mandatory system as conceived by Wilson and formulated in theory required that the
wishes of the peoples of the countries concerned the Covenant of the League of Nations
recognized in principle the independence of the Arab countries of the Ottoman Empire. But this
as we shall see, was not allowed to stand in the way of the normal course of power politics and
Imperial interests. The conditions laid down in theory were simply not observed in practice.

5] THE PEACE CONFERENCE

The first move to secure the Palestine Mandate for Britain and carry out the Zionist scheme
under it was made at the Peace Conference in Paris in 1919. Here again the scales were
crushingly weighted against the Arabs. The Zionists and their friends were there in great
strength; the Arabs, with one solitary exception, non-existent. Not only were all the Zionist
leaders in Paris to press and canvass their cause, but most of the leading representatives of the
Great Powers on the Peace Conference had already been won over to the Zionist cause, and had come to the Conference determined to ensure its triumph. Mr. Lloyd George, Lord Balfour, Lord Milner, President Wilson himself, General Smuts and Lord Cecil were now all protagonists of Zionism, pledged to its support. For years these gentlemen had been in close touch with the Zionist leaders, listening to their plausible arguments, and seeing the matter entirely from the Zionist point of view. Probably not one of them had seen a single Arab, while many of them had never heard the Arab objections to Zionism, and did not realise the implications of the scheme to which either from misguided humanitarian sympathy, or from considerations of a more selfish and material nature, they had given their support. As for the Arabs, they were represented at the Peace Conference  by the solitary figure of Prince Feisal, visiting Europe for the first time, out of his element in the maze of international diplomacy and intrigue, without any friends or allies - T.E. Lawrence and one or two subordinate members of the Foreign Office excepted - and having to address the Peace Conference in Arabic, with Lawrence unofficially interpreting for him.

In these circumstances the Arab case had no chance whatever. When Feisal spoke, what he had
to say reached his hearers only at second-hand, and in any case, the ears on which it fell were
already largely impervious to his plea. Anyhow no notice whatever was taken of the Arab cause as presented in Feisal's speech and in the official document of Arab demands which was deposited with the officials of the Conference. Feisal's endeavours to postpone, at least, a decision on Palestine were destined to be fruitless, for the Zionist leaders had already arranged with the Conference chiefs for their own form of Mandate in Palestine, and by 30th January, 1919 the division of Syria between Britain and France was already tacitly agreed upon. Palestine as the southern part of Syria was to be arbitrarily severed from the country of which it had formed a part for centuries, in order that: (a) the rival imperialisms of Britain and France should be satisfied and (b) the Zionist scheme should be carried out in Palestine under British protection and with British help.

Nor did the anti-Zionist Jewish leaders who appeared before the Peace Conference fare any
better than the Arab representative. Their spokesman was Professor Sylvain Levi, who held a
chair in the College de France. He had not long returned from Palestine, where he had gone to
represent French Jewry on the Zionist Commission that went there immediately after the British
Occupation. Professor Levi had joined the Commission in the belief that it was a relief
organization whose object was merely to succour the Jews in the Holy Land. Having been
undeceived by what he saw in Palestine, he came back, a witness of unmatched experience and
integrity, to explain to the Peace Conference the true facts and implications, but he found no
favour with the statesmen who had been so completely won over by the Zionist leaders. We have the testimony of Mr. De Has, the historian of the Zionist movement that "at the formal hearing given to the Zionist leaders, the members of the Supreme Council not only listened approvingly to the Zionist claims, but they showed marked displeasure at a French-Jewish anti-Zionist". Similar coldness greeted the Memorandum presented to the Conference by Mr. Lucien Wolf on behalf of the Board of Delegates of British Jews.

From the Zionist case as it was prepared and presented to the Peace Conference by Dr.
Weizmann, Mr. Sokolov and Dr. Stephen Wise, with the knowledge and support of the American and British Governments, two things stand out very clearly: first, that the Zionist scheme was one for the entire, if gradual, seizure of Palestine by the Jews, and for its conversion thus into a Jewish state; second, while this was the real object, and while the British and American Governments knew that it was the real object and approved of it, opinions among the conspirators differed as to how much of this intention it was wise to stake openly at that stage, and how much should be concealed until it had become a fait accompli. President Wilson, who was rather the dupe of this conspiracy than an active participant in it, showed his naivete and ignorance of the implications, as well as of the diplomatic chicanery required for the occasion, by innocently stating that "he concurred in the foundation of a Jewish state in Palestine". Similarly M. Tardieu, sailing with French contempt for hypocrisy through face-saving formalities, declared bluntly that there would be no objection by France to the Formation of a new Zionist state in Palestine. The permanent officials of the British Foreign Office however (in spite of their Ministerial Chief's delight at the success which his plans were encountering) were alarmed at this premature letting of the cat out of the bag. The astute Dr. Weizmann himself declined to claim immediately the National state which President Wilson and M. Tardieu were willing to present him with on the spot. "We do not", he said in an interview printed in the Times of the 1st March, 1919, "aspire to found a Zionist state. What we want is a country in which all nations and all creeds shall have equal rights and equal tolerance. We cannot hope to rule in a country in which only one-seventh of the population at present are Jews. We understand that the Peace Conference has practically decided to place Palestine under the League of Nations. This is entirely in accordance with our wishes, but we go further. We indicate the Power which we wish to be the Mandatory of the League. That Power is Great Britain. The British Imperial system which has provided for almost every description of state, can take into itself without friction a Jewish Palestine held intrust for the League of Nations". Further on in the same interview, the whole latent purpose came out. The Zionists, said Dr. Weizmann, wanted Palestine to become as quickly as possible "as Jewish as England is English".

A similar statement had been made by Dr. Weizmann in answering a question put to him by the
American Secretary of State at the Peace Conference. Finally, Dr. Weizmann laid bare the entire idea of the gradual, as opposed to the immediate, annexation of Palestine by the Zionists. "We have never proposed", he said, "that a Jewish minority should rule over the rest. Palestine will only become a Jewish self-governing commonwealth when the majority of its inhabitants are Jewish".

Thus Britain was to occupy Palestine in order to enable the Jews first to become a majority by
immigration and then, having become a majority, acquired most of the land in the country by
various forms of purchase, transformed its natural character by a cultural invasion and colonised it in every sense of the word, to set up a Jewish National State. As for the Arabs, the people of the country who were to be thus dispossessed and deprived of their birthright in their own land, Dr. Weizmann dismissed them in a sentence which, read to-day, exposes with mocking irony the complete unrealism, if not disingenuous casuistry, of both the Zionist leaders of that time and those European and American statesmen who listened to them.

"I see no reason", said Dr.Weizmann in that same interview given to the Times "for differences between ourselves and the Arab non-Jewish population. There is plenty of room for us both in Palestine. It will hold five or six millions properly developed, whereas the present population is less that 700,000. It is not likely that there will ever be an 'Arab question' in Palestine".

The disingenuous part of this statement is its deliberate concealment of the fact that the ultimate issue was one of sovereignty and not merely a question of how much room there was in the country, or what sort of population it could support. If Dr. Weizmann and the other Zionist leaders who were lobbying the Peace Conference really thought that the Arabs would not oppose this attack on their national existence in Palestine, they were entirely ignorant of the realities involved, and the statesmen who listened to them were being grossly misled. If, on the other hand, they and their supporters knew, as anyone with any knowledge of human nature and national psychology, let alone the facts, must have known, that the Arabs would oppose this attack and have to be suppressed by force, then they were guilty of something infinitely worse than ignorance. They were guilty of betraying every democratic principle which had been invoked by the Allies during the war, and violating the entire moral code by which the Peace Conference professed to be ruled.

6] THE KING-CRANE COMMISSION

President Wilson himself had a violent shock before the Conference was many weeks old. Angered by the attitude of the French in Syria, Mr. Lloyd George summoned a private meeting of the Big Four, flourished the Hussein-McMahon treaty in the face of M. Clemenceau and affirmed that Britain, who had bound herself by such a solemn treaty with the Arabs and received, f rom them in return, invaluable assistance during the war, could not acquiesce in the dispossession of the Arabs in Syria by the French. That Britain herself was at that very moment, and in complete disregard of that document which Mr. Lloyd George was waving at the French with such a theatrical of its sanctity, was planning a more cruel dispossession of the Arabs in Palestine not seem to worry the supple conscience of Mr. Lloyd George at all. However, the whole disclosure came as a shock to the American President. Mr. Wilson said that it was the first he had ever heard of the Hussein-McMahon treaty and was interested to know of it. He then went on to state that the United States was indifferent to the claims of both France and Great Britain over peoples, unless those peoples wanted them. One of the fundamental principles to which the United States adhered, he said, was the consent of the governed. From the point of view of the United States, the only thing that mattered was whether France would be agreeable to the Syrians, and Britain to the Mesopotamians.

The President, who had all along given his whole-hearted support to Zionism, and who only a few weeks before had declared that America would concur in the founding of a Jewish state in Palestine, apparently never stopped to think whether this would be agreeable to the people of Palestine, where the principle of the consent of the governed should not apply to the southern part of Syria (Palestine) as well as to the northern part, where he now insisted on defending it against the French designs.

However, as a result of this meeting, President Wilson did take a very important step with the
intention of putting into practice the principles he advocated. He proposed that an international
commission representing America, Britain and France should go to Syria and Palestine and ascertain the wishes of the people. Britain and France declined to act on this proposal, but the President was not deterred, and eventually sent out an entirely American commission to carry out the investigation. This was the famous King-Crane Commission which, after a comprehensive and penetrating survey reported strongly against the Zionist scheme and warned of the dangers involved in any attempt to carry it out, except on a very small scale and in a manner that would fundamentally preclude any idea of a Jewish state. The report, however, came too late to be placed before the Peace Conference. Moreover when it reached the President his health had begun to fail and his grip on things to loosen. No action whatever was taken on it. Its recommendations, which, if adopted, would have dictated an entirely different kind of Mandate for Palestine, and would have obviated the entire conflict and problem of to-day, were disregarded.

The predetermined course of events was not to be halted by any such obstacle. The plot moved
forward to the next stage.

END6

7] THE "AWARDING" OF THE MANDATE

This next stage was the meeting of Supreme Allied Council at San Remo in 1920. It consisted of
the representatives of Britain, France, Italy and Japan, and was attended by an American
observer. Here too the Zionists were present to press their claims, and the party was joined by
Sir Herbert Samuel who, as will be remembered, had been the first sponsor of the Zionist
scheme from within the British Cabinet, and who now arrived at San Remo fresh from a tour of
Palestine with a report on the project in hand.

It was at a meeting of this Conference between the four principal Allied Powers that the Mandate for Palestine was "awarded" to Britain. What in fact happened, of course, was that Britain and France with the acquiescence of their partners merely put into effect their previous agreement for sharing out the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire, under the new name of Mandates required by the international conventions of the time. Something else also happened.

The text of the Balfour Declaration was slipped into the British Mandate for Palestine. Yet these fateful decisions, which were to commit the British Government to so much, and which disposed of the destinies of a whole people as though they did not exist, or were mere sheep, were not even announced to the British public or to the world. The official communiques which refer to them on the 25th May, 1920 merely reported that "the Supreme Council met at 11 a.m. to-day at the Villa Devachan. There were present Signori Nitti and Scialoja, MM. Millerand and Berthelot, Mr.Lloyd George, Lord Curzon, Mr. Matsui and Mr. Underwood Johnson. The question of the Mandate for Palestine, Syria and Mesopotamia was discussed".

Thus did Britain accept the solemn obligation to occupy and administer Palestine in such a way as to enable the Zionists to establish in it a National Home for the Jewish people. In such
huggermugger fashion was the fate of Palestine decided, again without the objection to the
Zionist scheme being heard, and without a single thought being given to the wishes of the people of the country which was thus being disposed of, or to the principles on which the League of Nations was supposed to be based. The conspiracy in fact was proceeding according to plan and in the shady and furtive manner which befits conspiracies.

8] THE DRAFTING OF THE COVENANT AND MANDATE

The next stage was that of drafting the Covenant of the League of Nations and the texts of the
Mandates. The two men who had more to do with the framing of the Covenant and the formation of the Mandatory system than anyone else - General Smuts and Lord Cecil - were both ardent pro-Zionists. This alone was enough to ensure the success of the Zionists during this phase of the proceedings, to ensure in fact that the universal principles of the Mandatory system should not be applied to Palestine; that an exception should be made of Palestine in order that the Zionist scheme, which would have been categorically precluded by these principles, should be carried out.

This is clearly seen in a paper written by General Smuts for the Peace Conference outlining the nature of the Mandatory system.

"I would begin", said the author of this Memorandum, "by making the following recommendations:-
"That as far as the peoples and territories formerly belonging to Russia, Austria - Hungary and
Turkey are concerned, the League of Nations should be considered as Reversionary in the most
general sense and as clothed with the right of ultimate disposal in accordance with certain
fundamental principles. These principles are first that there shall be no annexation of these
territories to any of the victorious states, that in the future government of these territories and
peoples the rule of self-determination or the consent of the governed to their government shall
be fairly and reasonably applied". This was a clear and admirable statement of universal
principles. But the principles enunciated in it would have clearly kept the Zionists out of Palestine, and General Smuts wanted the Zionists in Palestine, so he had to invent a reason for the exclusion of Palestine from the operation of these universal principles.

This is how he did it:- "There will be found cases where, owing chiefly to the heterogeneous character of the population and their incapacity for administrative co-operation, autonomy in a real sense would be out of the question, and the administration would have to be undertaken to a very large extent by some external authority. This would be the case, at any rate for some time to come, in Palestine, where the administrative co-operation of the Jewish minority and of the Arab majority would not be forthcoming", and again "there will however be cases such as Palestine . . . , where for reasons above referred to, an autonomous regime cannot be adopted at the start, and where the consultation of the country on the question of its Mandatory state is therefore not formally possible. Even in such cases the League will, as far as possible, follow the trend of popular opinion".

Either General Smuts, let it be bluntly stated, was completely ignorant of the facts with regard
to Palestine and therefore totally unfitted to express any opinion on the matter, or he knew the
facts and deliberately tried to distort them. There can be no other explanation of his describing
the population of Palestine as of a 'heterogeneous character' and therefore incapable of
administrative co-operation. For the population of Palestine, the natural population of the country before the Zionist invasion which General Smuts and his friends were planning, had started, was anything but heterogeneous. It was as homogeneous as any population can be, and more so than that of many countries which have for long been independent national states. That population was entirely Arab with the one exception of a small Jewish Community no larger than that to be found in any other country. There was as yet no question whatever of an Arab Majority and a Jewish minority whose administrative co-operation could not be secured. It was the design of General Smuts and his friends to make the population of Palestine artificially heterogeneous and to create a Jewish minority which would refuse to co-operate with the Arabs and oppose autonomy until it became the majority. To describe the population of Palestine as heterogeneous before all this happened was nothing but an ingenious and unworthy proleptic trick. What General Smuts' argument amounts to in plain honest words, is this: "As we are determined to force a large immigrant Jewish population on the Arabs in Palestine, and as it is manifest that the Arabs will not acquiesce in this invasion of their country and that, if they had a government of their own, they would prevent it, then clearly we cannot allow them a government of their own but must deny them all autonomy and hold them down so that our purpose may be accomplished".

We have analysed General Smuts' statement in such detail because it reveals in an unmistakable
way the workings not only of his own mind but of the minds of almost all the European and
American champions of Zionism who at that time were presiding over the peace settlement. It
reveals the mixture of ignorance and dishonesty, the distortion and casuistry, the tricks of
pretences, by which the people of Palestine were to be dispossessed any by which a cloak of
morality was to be thrown over their real fate to hide its ugly nakedness.

As we have seen, the Mandate for Palestine was awarded to Britain not by the League of Nations but by the Supreme Allied Council, that is to say, Britain appropriated the Mandate with the consent of the major Powers. The role of the League of Nations was to be confined to a formal endorsement later in the day, and under circumstances which did not give the Assembly, that is to say, the League as a whole, any say in the matter, but confined in practice the power of composing and allocating the Mandates to the Council of the League, a body that was almost identical with the Supreme Allied Council consisting as it did of the major Allies of the war. Thus the limitation of the Mandatories' authority could now only proceed from the Mandatories themselves. Moreover this arrogation by the Council of the League of all authority relating to the Mandates was effected without the leave of the Assembly, and therefore of the vast majority of League members. It was effected by the simple process of the Council defining that all the "members of the League" meant itself alone.

When it came to the drafting of the Mandates, the Council of the League obligingly enquired of
the principal Allied Powers (that is to say, of itself) "what degree of authority, administration or
control they suggest that the Council should confer upon the Mandatory Powers under the terms of paragraphs 4 and 5 of Article 22". Where upon the principal Allied Powers wrote back (again, that is to say' to themselves) to offer their suggestions for the power they were to enjoy.

The actual text of the Mandate for Palestine, like that of the Balfour Declaration, was drafted
by the Zionist leaders themselves in collaboration with the British Government, and then was
issued under cover of the League of Nations' name, as though it were the result of the collective
debates of the world's law-givers. As early as the spring of 1919, the experts of the British
Delegation to the Peace Conference in Paris opened informal discussions with representatives of the Zionist Organization on the draft of the mandate for Palestine. The Zionists appointed
special committees for the purpose which included Dr. Weizmann, Mr. Sokolov and Sir Herbert
Samuel. The chief drafter seems to have been Professor Frankfurter who prepared a number of
alternative texts. The Zionist proposals were then handed to the British Delegation and were
largely embodied in its first tentative draft. For several weeks drafts and counter-drafts were
prepared by and exchanged between the Zionist leaders and the British Delegation. As in the
case of the Balfour Declaration, the British representatives resisted some of the Zionist
demands, notably those which they thought might reveal too much at that early stage, but in the
main accepted the bulk and substance of the Zionist proposals.

The history of one particular clause is worth mentioning here, because it reveals the extreme
doubtfulness of the thesis on which the entire Zionist claim to Palestine was based by the Zionist and apparently conceded by Britain and the Allied Powers. In the Balfour Declaration there was no mention whatever of the Jewish historical connection with Palestine and no suggestion that this connection constituted any basis for establishing a Jewish National Home in Palestine. In that document the British Government had merely, as we have seen, declared that they viewed with favour the establishment of a National Home for the Jewish people in Palestine and offered their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of that object. But this was not enough for the Zionists, who wanted the National Home they were planning to be based on something that would apparently at least give them a right or a title to it of some moral validity, something beyond a mere offer by the British Government or the Allied Powers. They wanted in fact that the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate should appear at least as the public recognition of a right inherent in the Jewish people. When it came to the drafting of the Mandate therefore, the Zionist leaders inserted a clause into the Preamble to the effect that Britain, by issuing the Balfour Declaration and the allied Powers by endorsing it, had "given recognition to the historical title of the Jewish people to Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their National Home in the country". In the successive drafts that were prepared, this clause kept appearing and disappearing alternately as the result of the revision of the text by the British Delegation, an oscillation on the part of the British Government which, to say the least of it, indicated how doubtful they were about the validity and reasonableness of the Zionist claim, and about the wisdom of their accepting it as a basis for what they had undertaken to do. Eventually the Zionists had their way in principle, if not in detail. The clause was retained, but the phrase "historical title" changed into "historical connection".

Throughout these proceedings, be it noted, the Arabs were never consulted. The Mandate, which ostensibly at least, contained two sets of obligations to be undertaken by Britain, the one towards the Jews and the other towards the Arabs, the actual people of the country, was concocted entirely by the Zionist leaders and the British Government as a private family concern without any notice being taken of the third party.

When the final text had been agreed upon, it was considered and passed by the British Cabinet,
after which Lord Balfour sent it with a covering letter to the Secretary-General of the League of Nations.

The hypocirisy of this little tragic farce which was being thus enacted can be best illustrated by
quoting what Mr. J.M.N. Jeffries has to say on these proceedings in his book, "Palestine: The
Reality".

"It is", he says "worth considering for a moment what was the status of this letter (i.e., Lord Balfour's communication to the Secretary-General of the League of Nations). Its sender acted on behalf of the British Government which acted on behalf of the Supreme Council of the Allied Powers. Letters passing from the Supreme Allied Council to the Council of the League of Nations had the air of passing from one international body to another international body, the two being aloof, disinterested and unrelated to each other. But in reality they were intertwined. . . It is unnecessary to enlarge upon Balfour's presence in the League Council, and his close connection with the Supreme Council. The League Council in the affairs of Palestine was an orchestra which he conducted. The Supreme Council in the affairs of Palestine. . . was nothing but an alias of Mr. Lloyd George's and he in Palestine affairs was one with Lord Balfour. So in truth, there is scarcely an exaggeration in saying that when His Majesty's Government acting on behalf of the Supreme Council of the Allied Powers, was pompously proclaimed as submitting the draft Mandates for Palestine and for Mesopotamia to the Council of the League of Nations, little more occurred than that Lord Balfour sent the draft Mandates for approval to Lord Balfour. . . Balfour despatched the Mandate from his desk, pursued it, caught it up in the Council Chamber, and surpassed any farce on the stage by having its contents laid before him, and in a covering letter "venturing to hope" that what he had drawn up "would satisfy" himself".

It is worth mentioning here that the minutes of the Council meeting during which Lord Balfour's
letter came to hand are omitted from the records of the Council. It is worth mentioning that the draft Mandate was not published in England. There were requests for its publication in the House of Commons, but Mr. Lloyd George stated that there would be no publication till it was known what action the Council of the League intended to take in the matter.

In Geneva the arrival of the draft produced an unexpected result. The Assembly of the League
reacting against the tricks by which its fight to decide on the terms of Mandates had been
appropriated by the Council of the League, met and requested the Council to communicate to it
the draft Mandates received from Lord Balfour. The Council refused. The Sub-Committee set up by the Assembly to examine the Mandates in detail made a second appeal, but all it could obtain was that the texts of the Mandates were communicated to its Chairman "confidentially". The Committee members might read the drafts, but the drafts must not be laid before them in an official manner permitting comment. Still less would alteration of them be permitted. The Assembly was only able to send general recommendations concerning the Mandates to the Council.
 
These recommendations all implied criticism of the Council's attitude and the general manner in
which the whole question of Mandates had been handled. The most important of them were the
following:
 

    that an organic law should be drawn up as soon as possible for the Mandated territories and
    should be laid before the League of Nations before it came into force;
    that in general in the future, draft Mandates should be made public before the Council of the
    League enacted them.

Next came a more open rebuke in a resolution which began: "The Assembly of the League regrets that the Council should have refused to publish draft Mandates before they came into force".

Thus not only the Arabs but the majority of the countries represented in the League of Nations
had had no say in the drafting of the Mandate and knew nothing about its terms before it had
been enacted by the small group of Powers which constituted the Council of the League. This fact should be remembered every time the Zionist propagandists reiterate their hackneyed phrase about the Mandate having been given to Britain by "52 nations" in order that she should establish in Palestine a Jewish state.

END8

9] CONCLUSION

Such, in outline, is the secret history of the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate, a recital that
does very little credit to the authors of these two documents. It is the history of a sordid conspiracy to cheat a people, who at that time were not in a position to defend their rights and expose the machinations of their enemies to the world. It is the history of a conspiracy to dispose of a country in a novel and unique manner, which flouted every principle of justice and violated all the rules which had been laid down by the authors themselves for international conduct after the first World War. It is the history of a crime disguised as a lawful and noble act. It is a history which must make it plain to anyone with normal intelligence and a modicum of intellectual honesty, that these two documents do not rest on any recognizable basis of law or morality whatever and that nothing in them can invalidate the inalienable rights of the people of Palestine "on whose property and dear life this damn'd defeat was made".

END9

FINAL

          When the first high commissioner for Palestine arrived in                         (photo)
          Jerusalem, he was met with a seventeen-gun salute and endless
          words of welcome. Sir Herbert Samuel made the journey in
          June 1920, and served as high commissioner for a period of
          five years. His appointment was viewed by many Jews as
          affirmation that the British promise for a Jewish National
          Home in Palestine would be honored. The telegram sent to the
          Zionist Organisation Central Office in London reflects the
          atmosphere of excitement that surrounded Samuel's arrival.

          Samuel himself was moved by the outpouring of emotion which greeted him in the
          Land of Israel. He had been raised in an Orthodox Jewish home, and although he
          subsequently ceased practicing, he remained intensely interested in Jewish communal
          problems.

          Samuel's career in different British posts was unique in its scope; he was the first
          unconverted Jew to serve in a Cabinet office.

          Samuel first presented the idea of a British protectorate in 1915. In a memorandum to
          Prime Minister Asquith, he proposed that a British protectorate be established which
          would allow for increased Jewish settlement. In time, the future Jewish majority would
          enjoy a considerable degree of autonomy. Herbert believed that the creation of a Jewish
          center would flourish spiritually and intellectually, resulting in the character improvement

of Jews all over the world. At that time, however, Prime Minister Asquith was not

interested in pursuing such an option, and no action was taken. Yet significant ground-

work had been accomplished, and it was on the basis of Samuel's work that the Balfour

Declaration was later written.

It was therefore no surprise that Samuel was appointed first High Commissioner of  

Palestine. His appointment made him the first Jew to govern in the Land of Israel in

2,000 years. Anxious to serve his country well, Samuel made it clear that his policy was

to unite all dissenting groups under the British flag. Attempting to appease the Arabs in

Palestine, Samuel made several significant concessions. It was he who appointed Hajj

Amin al-Husseini, a noted Arab nationalist extremist, to be Mufti of Jerusalem. In

addition, he slowed the pace of Jewish immigration to Palestine, much to the distress of

the Zionists. In attempting to prove his impartiality, the Zionists claimed that he had gone

too far, and had damaged the Zionist cause. Many Zionists were ultimately disappointed