FOUNDATIONS OF THE CONFLICT
Source One (From Modern History Sourcebook)
This letter to Lord Rothschild, by the British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour,
was aimed at Jewish support for the Allies in the First World War. The letter, known as
the "Balfour Declaration" became the basis movement to create a Jewish state in
Palestine. The letter was published a week later in The Times (London) of London
November 2nd, 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 favor the establishment in Palestine of a national
home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors 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, Arthur James Balfour
Source Two (From Modern History Sourcebook)
Sir Henry McMahon: Letter to Ali ibn Husain, 1915
As for those regions lying within those frontiers wherein Great Britain is free to act
without detriment to the interests of her ally, France, I am empowered in the name of the
Government of Great Britain to give the following assurances and make the following
reply to your letter:
(1) Subject to the above modifications, Great Britain is prepared to recognise and support
the independence of the Arabs in all the regions within the limits demanded by the Sherif
of Mecca.
(2) Great Britain will guarantee the Holy Places against all external aggression and will
recognise their inviolability.
FOUNDATIONS OF THE CONFLICT
Perspectives on the McMahon Letter
Henry McMahon, former British High Commissioner, in a 1922 letter to Sir John
Shuckburgh of the British Colonial Office wrote the following:
"It was my intention to exclude Palestine from independent Arabia, and I hoped that I had
so worded the letter as to make this sufficiently clear for all practical purposes. My
reasons for restricting myself to specific mention of Damascus, Hama, Homs and Aleppo
in that connection in my letter were: 1) that these were places to which the Arabs attached
vital importance and 2) that there was no place I could think of at the time of sufficient
importance for purposes of definition further South of the above. It was as fully my
intention to exclude Palestine as it was to exclude the more Northern coastal tracts of
Syria."
Benny Morris, PhD, Professor of History at Ben-Gurion University, Israel, in his 2001
book titled Righteous Victims, wrote the following:
"The British, including McMahon, and the Zionists maintained that he [McMahon] had
implicitly included Palestine in the areas 'west' of Damascus excluded from prospective
Arab rule, though a minority among British officials (Dr. Arnold Toynbee of the Foreign
Office Political Intelligence Department for one) held that McMahon had in fact
earmarked Palestine as part of the Arab state.
The Arabs argued that, as Palestine was not to the west but to the southwest of Damascus,
and as it had not been explicitly excluded, it was to be part of the Arab state. On balance
it appears that they were right. McMahon had specifically set aside for 'non-Arab' rule
Lebanon and the northwestern Syrian coastal regions."
Respond
1) Judging from the above sources, who was promised Palestine?
2) Should these documents have any bearing on the current conflict between Palestinians
and Israelis?
FOUNDATIONS OF THE CONFLICT
The 1922 British White Paper, an official British policy paper on Palestine, stated the
following about Jewish immigration:
"It is necessary that the Jewish community in Palestine should be able to increase its
numbers by immigration. This immigration cannot be so great in volume as to exceed
whatever may be the economic capacity of the country at the time to absorb new arrivals.
It is essential to ensure that the immigrants should not be a burden upon the people of
Palestine as a whole, and that they should not deprive any section of the present
population of their employment. Hitherto the immigration has fulfilled these conditions.
The number of immigrants since the British occupation has been about 25,000.
It is necessary also to ensure that persons who are politically undesirable be excluded
from Palestine, and every precaution has been and will be taken by the Administration to
that end.
It is intended that a special committee should be established in Palestine, consisting
entirely of members of the new Legislative Council elected by the people, to confer with
the administration upon matters relating to the regulation of immigration."
Respond
What was British policy on Jewish immigration to Palestine during the years between
World War I and World War II?
FOUNDATIONS OF THE CONFLICT
Directions: Take on one of the following perspectives and be prepared to present your
view to the class.
Perspective One
Fouad Abdel-Moneim Riad, an Egyptian lawyer and former judge, in a May 22, 2002 AlAhram article titled "The battle for a moral world," was quoted as saying:
"The 1917 Balfour Declaration and the UN's 1947 Partition Decree were both exercises
in ultra vires, which means surpassing one's authority, and powers."
Perspective Two
Daoud Kuttab, Director of the Institute of Modern Media at Al Quds University in
Jerusalem, in a Nov. 3, 2001 editorial titled "The Balfour declaration and Palestine,"
wrote the following:
"The Zionists, and later the Jews of the state of Israel were successful in marketing this
document [the 1917 Balfour Declaration] as the legitimizing document for their policy of
illegal immigration, unilateral declaration of an exclusive state, the expropriation and
takeover of Palestinian Arab lands and property and the expulsion of the majority of the
Arabs of Palestine."
Perspective Three
Alan Dershowitz, LLB, Harvard Law Professor, in his 2003 book titled The Case for
Israel, wrote the following:
"A de facto Jewish homeland already existed in parts of Palestine, and its recognition by
the Balfour Declaration became a matter of binding international law when the League of
Nations made it part of its mandate."
Perspective Four
The Esco Foundation for Palestine, in its 1947 study titled "Palestine: A Study of Jewish,
Arab, and British Policies Vol. 2," wrote:
"It was not, obviously, an arbitrary act when the League of Nations with the concurrence
of fifty-two of the leading nations of the world and with the formal approval of the
United States recognized the Jewish claim to establish a national home in Palestine [the
Balfour Declaration]. It is not the single fact that the Jews once occupied Palestine, but a
whole complex of facts that makes the Jewish claim acceptable to the international
conscience."