Page 24 - Balfour100-E

24 Ambiguous wording Preparations ✡

to aid Britain’s imperialist interests.
With these competing positions, the
stage was set for conflict and intrigue,
especially as the drafting group itself
included several of these factions.
James and Walter Rothschild and Harry
Sacher were Political Zionists, whereas
Ahad Ha’am and Moses Gaster were
committed Cultural Zionists. Still oth-
ers, such as Chaim Weizmann, Nahum
Sokolow and Herbert Samuel MP, were
prepared to take a pragmatic, cultur-
alist stance in the short-term whilst
hoping for statehood in the long term:
“To attempt to realise the aspiration
of a Jewish State one century too soon
might throw back its actual realisation
for many centuries more.” 2 Key architects of the Balfour Declara-
An important key figure in the whole tion included Ahad Ha’am (above)
process was Sir Mark Sykes MP, desig- and Sir Mark Sykes
nated by the Cabinet to guide and direct
the small Zionist group selected to draft
the Declaration. He was pro-Arab, and A recreated Homeland seemed to them,
strongly in favour of Cultural Zionist ‘The majority of not the fulfilment of a dream, but the
aims that would not undermine Arab undermining of their hard-won citizen-
dreams of a Middle East caliphate. Sykes respectable Jews ship in the Western countries.” 5
succeeded in persuading the drafting Cabinet ministers were astonished
group to word the Declaration in such still regarded at Montagu’s passionate outrage and
ambiguous terms that both Political so delayed any decision until due con-
and Cultural Zionists could interpret it Zionism as a mad sideration was given to the views of
according to their own goals. British assimilationists who meanwhile
This original draft was sent to Bal- delusion.’ were bombarding the media with their
four in July 1917, and after only minor opposition.
changes made by Balfour, was approved the draft to be accepted swiftly by Cabi- In August 1917, Sir Alfred Milner,
by Lloyd George and the Foreign Office net with no major changes. However, a Cabinet member, had a meeting with
by 16 August. It read: “His Majesty’s a virulently anti-Zionist Jewish MP, his friend Montefiore and with the aid
Government accept the principle that Edwin Montagu, had been appointed of Leopold Amery, an under-secretary
Palestine should be reconstituted as the to Cabinet just the previous day, and to the War Cabinet, he made three sig-
National Home of the Jewish people and when he saw the draft he immediately nificant changes to the Zionists’ draft.
will use their best endeavours to secure set about persuading the Government First he removed the word ‘reconsti-
the achievement of this object and will to reject it. tuted’ from the statement, and instead
be ready to consider any suggestions on As a fully assimilated British Jew of terming Palestine ‘the National
the subject which the Zionist Organisa- he had written to the Cabinet in 1915 Home of the Jewish people’, he called
tion may desire to lay before them.” 3 that: “Zionism has always seemed to it in his new draft ‘a National Home
This original wording would have me to be a mischievous political creed for the Jewish people’. He also changed
legally designated the whole mandated – untenable by any patriotic citizen of ‘secure’ to ‘facilitate’, and omitted the
area of Palestine for the Jewish National the United Kingdom ... There is not a word ‘national’.
Home, although the meaning of ‘Na- Jewish nation ... I deny that Palestine Amery later wrote in his autobi-
tional Home’ was left ambiguous and is today associated with the Jews or ography that he was proud of having
undefined. The drafting group expected properly to be regarded as a fit place ‘quietly produced’ a ‘judicious blend’
for them to live in.” which: “by substituting the indefinite
4
Kathy Durkin’s book ‘The Ambi- Describing this time, Lloyd George for the definite article, conveyed no
guity of the Balfour Declaration’ wrote: “The chiefest trouble was a rag- suggestion that Jews, as such, belonged
examines the archival evidence ing controversy with the anti-Zionist to Palestine, and left the future scope of
of the British Government
Cabinet meetings held during Jews, fuelled in the cabinet by the the National Home in Palestine to be
the First World War and during the early Secretary for India, Edwin Montagu, decided by developments.” 6
Palestine Mandate period. Kathy holds a PhD and aired in the press by Alexander and Milner’s revisions had the effect
in Cross Cultural Communication and Critical Montefiore, president and secretary of of greatly weakening the simple force
Thinking from Bournemouth University, and the Jewish Board of Deputies. In those of the original draft, and making the
a Masters Research in Jewish History and
Culture from Southampton University. She days the majority of respectable Jews Declaration even more vague and am-
recently retired as Senior Lecturer in Research still regarded Zionism as a mad delu- biguous – no doubt suiting Montefiore’s
Methodology at Bournemouth University. sion of ‘an army of beggars and cranks’. and Montagu’s objective. These changes