Full text of “Behind the Balfour Declaration - Britain’s Great War Pledge To Rothschild Bankers”
Full text of "Behind the Balfour Declaration - Britain's Great War Pledge To Rothschild Bankers" Skip to main content We will keep fighting for all libraries - stand with us! Internet Archive logo A line drawing of the Internet Archive headquarters building façade. Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape "Donate to the archive" Search icon An illustration of a magnifying glass. Search icon An illustration of a magnifying glass. Upload icon An illustration of a horizontal line over an up pointing arrow. Upload User icon An illustration of a person's head and chest. Sign up | Log in Web icon An illustration of a computer application window Wayback Machine Texts icon An illustration of an open book. Books Video icon An illustration of two cells of a film strip. Video Audio icon An illustration of an audio speaker. Audio Software icon An illustration of a 3.5" floppy disk. Software Images icon An illustration of two photographs. Images Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape Donate Ellipses icon An illustration of text ellipses. More Hamburger icon An icon used to represent a menu that can be toggled by interacting with this icon. Internet Archive Audio Live Music Archive Librivox Free Audio Featured All Audio This Just In Grateful Dead Netlabels Old Time Radio 78 RPMs and Cylinder Recordings Top Audio Books & Poetry Computers, Technology and Science Music, Arts & Culture News & Public Affairs Spirituality & Religion Podcasts Radio News Archive Images Metropolitan Museum Cleveland Museum of Art Featured All Images This Just In Flickr Commons Occupy Wall Street Flickr Cover Art USGS Maps Top NASA Images Solar System Collection Ames Research Center Software Internet Arcade Console Living Room Featured All Software This Just In Old School Emulation MS-DOS Games Historical Software Classic PC Games Software Library Top Kodi Archive and Support File Vintage Software APK MS-DOS CD-ROM Software CD-ROM Software Library Software Sites Tucows Software Library Shareware CD-ROMs Software Capsules Compilation CD-ROM Images ZX Spectrum DOOM Level CD Books Books to Borrow Open Library Featured All Books All Texts This Just In Smithsonian Libraries FEDLINK (US) Genealogy Lincoln Collection Top American Libraries Canadian Libraries Universal Library Project Gutenberg Children's Library Biodiversity Heritage Library Books by Language Additional Collections Video TV News Understanding 9/11 Featured All Video This Just In Prelinger Archives Democracy Now! Occupy Wall Street TV NSA Clip Library Top Animation & Cartoons Arts & Music Computers & Technology Cultural & Academic Films Ephemeral Films Movies News & Public Affairs Spirituality & Religion Sports Videos Television Videogame Videos Vlogs Youth Media Search the history of over 867 billion web pages on the Internet. Search the Wayback Machine Search icon An illustration of a magnifying glass. Mobile Apps Wayback Machine (iOS) Wayback Machine (Android) Browser Extensions Chrome Firefox Safari Edge Archive-It Subscription Explore the Collections Learn More Build Collections Save Page Now Capture a web page as it appears now for use as a trusted citation in the future. Please enter a valid web address AboutBlogProjectsHelpDonateContactJobsVolunteerPeople Sign up for free Log in Search metadata Search text contents Search TV news captions Search radio transcripts Search archived web sites Advanced Search About Blog Projects Help Donate Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape Contact Jobs Volunteer People Full text of "Behind the Balfour Declaration - Britain's Great War Pledge To Rothschild Bankers" See other formats Institute for Historical Review Behind the Balfour Declaration Britain's Great War Pledge To Lord Rothschild By Robert John Acknowledgements To Benjamin H. Freedman, who committed himself to finding and telling the facts about Zionism and Communism, and encouraged others to do the same. The son of one of the founders of the American Jewish Committee, which for many years was anti-Zionist, Ben Freedman founded the League for Peace with Justice in Palestine in 1946. He gave me copies of materials on the Balfour Declaration which I might never have found on my own and encouraged my own research. (He died in April 1984.) The Institute for Historical Review is providing means for the better understanding of the events of our time. Attempts to review historical records impartially often reveal that blame, culpability, or dishonor are not to be attached wholly to one side in the conflicts of the last hundred years. To seek to untangle fact from propaganda is a worthy study, for it increases understanding of how we got where we are and it should help people resist exploitation by powerful and destructive interests in the present and future, by exposing their working in the past. May I recommend to the Nobel Prize Committee that when the influence of this organization's historical review and search for truth has prevailed the societies of its contributors — say about 5 years or less from now — that they consider the IHRfor the Nobel Peace Prize. Regrettably, some of the company in that award would be hard to bear! The Balfour Declaration may be the most extraordinary document produced by any Government in world history. It took the form of a letter from the Government of His Britannic Majesty King George the Fifth, the Government of the largest empire the world has even known, on which — once upon a time — the sun never set; a letter to an international financier of the banking house of Rothschild who had been made a peer of the realm. Arthur Koestler wrote that in the letter "one nation solemnly promised to a second nation the country of a third." More than that, the country was still part of the Empire of a fourth, namely Turkey. It read: Foreign Office, November 2nd, 19 17 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 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." I should be grateful if you would bring this Declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation. Yours sincerely, Arthur James Balfour. [11 It was decided by Lord Allenby that the "Declaration" should not then be published in Palestine where his forces were still south of the Gaza-Beersheba line. This was not done until after the establishment of the Civil Administration in 1920. Then why was the "Declaration" made a year before the end of what was called The Great War? "The people" were told at the time that it was given as a return for a debt of gratitude which they were supposed to owe to the Zionist leader (and first President of Israel), Chaim Weizman, a Russian-born immigrant to Britain from Germany who was said to have invented a process of fermentation of horse chestnuts into scarce acetone for production of high explosives by the Ministry of Munitions. This horse chestnut propaganda production was not dislodged from the mass mind by the short bursts of another story which was used officially between the World Wars. So let us dig into the records and bury the chestnuts forever. To know where to explore we must stand back from the event and look over some parts of the relevant historical background. The terrain is extensive and the mud deep, so I shall try to proceed by pointing out markers. Herzl on the Jewish Problem Support for a "national home" for the Jews in Palestine from the government of the greatest empire in the world was in part a fulfillment of the efforts and scheming of Theodore Herzl (1860-1904), descendant of Sephardim (on his rich father's side) who had published Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State) in Vienna in 1896. It outlined the factors which he believed had created a universal Jewish problem, and offered a program to regulate it through the exodus of unhappy and unwanted Jews to an autonomous territory of their own in a national-socialist setting. Herzl offered a focus for a Zionist movement founded in Odessa in 1881, which spread rapidly through the Jewish communities of Russia, and small branches which had sprung up in Germany, England and elsewhere. Though "Zion" referred to a geographical location, it functioned as a Utopian conception in the myths of traditionalists, modernists and Zionists alike. It was the reverse of everything rejected in the actual Jewish situation in the "Dispersion," whether oppression or assimilation. In his diary Herzl describes submitting his draft proposals to the Rothschild Family Council, noting: "I bring to the Rothschilds and the big Jews their historical mission. I shall welcome all men of goodwill — we must be united — and crush all those of bad." [2J He read his manuscript "Addressed to the Rothschilds" to a friend, Meyer-Cohn, who said, Up till now I have believed that we are not a nation — but more than a nation. I believed that we have the historic mission of being the exponents of universalism among the nations and therefore were more than a people identified with a specific land. Herzl replied: Nothing prevents us from being and remaining the exponents of a united humanity, when we have a country of our own. To fulfill this mission we do not have to remain literally planted among the nations who hate and despite us. If, in our present circumstances, we wanted to bring about the unity of mankind independent of national boundaries, we would have to combat the ideal of patriotism. The latter, however, will prove stronger than we for innumerable years to come." [2al In this era, there were a number of Christians and Messianic groups who looked for a Jewish "return." One of these was the Protestant chaplain at the British Embassy in Vienna, who had published a book in 1882: The Restoration of the Jews to Palestine According to the Prophets. Through him, Herzl obtained an audience of the Grand Duke of Baden, and as they waited for their appointment to go to the castle, Herzl said to Chaplain Hechler, "When I go to Jerusalem I shall take you with me." The Duke gave Herzl's proposal his consideration, and agreed to Herzl's request that he might refer to it in his meetings outside of Baden. He then used this to open his way to higher levels of power. Through intermediaries, he endeavoured to ingratiate himself with the Sultan of Turkey by activities designed to reduce the agitation by l^migri'^ Armenian committees in London and Brussels for Turkish reforms and cessation of oppression [AJ and started a press campaign to calm public opinion in London on the Armenian question. But when offered money for Palestine, the Sultan replied that his people had won their Empire with blood, and owned it. "The Jews may spend their millions. When my Empire is divided, perhaps they will get Palestine for nothing. But only our corpse can be divided. I will never consent to vivisection. " [2bl Herzl met the Papal Nuncio in Vienna and promised the exclusion of Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Nazareth from the Jewish state. He started a Zionist newspaper, Die Welt, and was delighted to hear from the United States that a group of rabbis headed by Dr. Gustave Gottheil favored a Zionist movement. All this, and more, in a few months. It was Herzl who created the first Zionist Congress at Basel, Switzerland, 29-31 August 1897, [BJ There were 197 "delegates"; some were orthodox, some nationalist, liberal, atheist, culturalist, anarchist, socialist and some capitalist. "We want to lay the foundation stone of the house which is to shelter the Jewish nation," and "Zionism seeks to obtain for the Jewish people a publicly recognized, legally secured homeland in Palestine." declared Herzl. And his anti-assimilationist dictum that "Zionism is a return to the Jewish fold even before it is a return to the Jewish land," was an expression of his own experience which was extended into the official platform of Zionisn as the aim of "strengthening the Jewish national sentiment and national consciousness." [31 Another leading figure who addressed the Congress was Max Nordau, a Hungarian Jewish physician and author, who delivered a polemic against assimilated Jews. "For the first time the Jewish problem was presented forcefully before a European forum," wrote Weizmann. But the Russian Jews thought Herzl was patronizing them as Askenazim. They found his "western dignity did not sit well with our Russian- Jewish realism; and without wanting to, we could not help irritating him." [41 As a result of the Congress, the "Basic Protocol," keystone of the world Zionist movement, was adopted as follows: Zionism strives to create for the Jewish people a home in Palestine secured by public law. The Congress contemplates the following means to the attainment of this end: 1. The promotion on suitable lines of the colonization of Palestine by Jewish agricultural and industrial workers. 2. The organization and binding together of the whole of Jewry by means of appropriate institutions, local and international, in accordance with the laws of each country. 3 . The strengthening and fostering of Jewish national sentiment and consciousness. 4. Preparatory steps towards obtaining Government consent where necessary to the attainment of the aim of Zionism.[51 The British Chovevei-Zion Association declined an invitation to be represented at the Congress, and the Executive Committee of the Association of Rabbis in Germany protested that: 1. The efforts of so-called Zionists to found a Jewish national state in Palestine contradict the messianic promise of Judaism as contained in the Holy Writ and in later religious sources. 2. Judaism obligates its adherents to serve with all devotion the Fatherland to which they belong, and to further its national interests with all their heart and with all their strength. 3. However, those noble aims directed toward the colonization of Palestine by Jewish peasants and farmers are not in contradiction to these obligations, because they have no relation whatsoever to the founding of a national state. [61 In conversation with a delegate at the First Congress, Litman Rosenthal, Herzl said, It may be that Turkey will refuse or be unable to understand us. This will not discourage us. We will seek other means to accomplish our end. The Orient question is now the question of the day. Sooner or later it will bring about a conflict among the nations. A European war is imminent. . The great European War must come. With my watch in hand do I await this terrible moment. After the great European war is ended the Peace Conference will assemble. We must be ready for that time. We will assuredly be called to this great conference of the nations and we must prove to them the urgent importance of a Zionist solution to the Jewish Question. We must prove to them that the problem of the Orient and Palestine is one with the problem of the Jews — both must be solved together. We must prove to them that the Jewish problem is a world problem and that a world problem must be solved by the world. And the solution must be the return of Palestine to the Jewish people. [American Jewish News, 7 March 1919] A few months later, in a message to a Jewish conference in London, Herzl wrote "the first moment I entered the Movement my eyes were directed towards England because I saw that by reason of the general situation of things there it was the Archimedean point where the lever could be applied." Herzl showed his desire for some foothold in England, and also perhaps his respect for London as the world's financial center, by causing the Jewish Colonial Trust, which was to be the main financial instrument of his Movement, to be incorporated in 1899 as an English company. Herzl was indefatigable. He offered the Sultan of Turkey help in re-organizing his financial affairs in return for assistance in Jewish settlement in Palestine. [71 To the Kaiser, who visited Palestine in 1888 and again in 1898, [CI he promised support for furthering German interests in the Near East; a similar offer was made to King Edward VII of England; and he personally promised the Pope to respect the holy places of Christendom in return for Vatican support. [Dl But only from the Czar did he receive, through the Minister of the Interior, a pledge of "moral and material assistance with respect to the measures taken by the movement which would lead to a diminution of the Jewish population in Russia." [81 He reported his work to the Sixth Zionist Congress at Basle on 23 August 1903, but stated, "Zion is not and can never be. It is merely an expedient for colonization purposes, but, be it well understood, an expedient founded on a national and political basis." [9J When pressed for Jewish colonization in Palestine, the Turkish Sublime Porte offered a charter for any other Turkish territory [with acceptance by the settlers of Ottoman citizenship] which Herzl refused. [1 1] The British Establishment, aware of Herzl's activities through his appearance before the Royal Commission on Alien Immigration, [EJ and powerful press organs such as the Daily Chronicle and Pall Mall Gazette which were demanding a conference of the Powers to consider the Zionist program, [12] somewhat characteristically, had shown a willingness to negotiate about a Jewish colony in the Egyptian territory of El-Arish on the Turco-Egyptian frontier in the Sinai Peninsula. But the Egyptian Government objected to making Nile water available for irrigation; the Turkish Government, through its Commissioner in Cairo, objected; and the British Agent in Cairo, Lord Cromer, finally advised the scheme's rejection. [13] Meanwhile, returning from a visit to British East Africa in the Spring of 1903, Prime Minister Joseph Chamberlain put to Herzl the idea of a Jewish settlement in what was soon to become the Colony of Kenya, but through a misunderstanding Herzl believed that Uganda was intended, and it was referred to as the "Uganda scheme." Of the part of the conversation on the El-'Arish proposal, Herzl wrote in his diary that he had told Chamberlain that eventually we shall gain our aims "not from the goodwill but from the jealously of the Powers." [141 With the failure of the El-'Arish proposal, Herzl authorized the preparation of a draft scheme for settlement in East Africa. This was prepared by the legal firm of Lloyd George, Roberts and Company, on the instructions of Herzl's go-between with the British Government, Leopold Greenberg. [151 Herzl urged acceptance of the "Uganda scheme," favoring it as a temporary refuge, but he was opposed from all sides, and died suddenly of heart failure on 3 July 1904. Herzl's death rid the Zionists of an "alien," and he was replaced by David Wolffsohn (the Litvak [F1). [161 The "Uganda proposal" split the Zionist movement. Some who favored it formed the Jewish Territorial Organization, under the leadership of Israel Zangwill (1864-1926). For these territorialists, the renunciation of "Zion" was not generally felt as an ideological sacrifice; instead they contended that not mystical claims to "historic attachment" but present conditions should determine the location of a Jewish national homeland. [171 In Turkey, the "Young Turk" (Committee of Union and Progress) revolution of 1908 was ostensibly a popular movement opposed to foreign influence. However, Jews and crypto-Jews known as Dunmeh had played a leading part in the Revolution. [191 The Zionists opened a branch of the Anglo-Palestine Bank in the Turkish capital, and the bank became the headquarters of thei… truncated (154,968 more characters in archive)