- What do Zionism and nail polish remover
have in common?
To answer that let's talk about the Balfour Declaration.
How did a 117 word letter
from a British Foreign Secretary
empower a 3,000 year old nation
to return to their homeland?
And what makes the Balfour Declaration so important
and controversial, still today,
more than a hundred years later?
(upbeat music)
November 2nd, 1917.
In the thick of World War 1,
as the British prepared for victory
over the Ottoman Empire,
and the imminent quest of much of the Middle East,
Foreign Secretary, Lord Arthur James Balfour,
wrote an important letter
to one of Britain's most illustrious Jewish citizens,
Lord Lionel Walter Rothschild.
In the letter, he expressed the British government's support
for a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
"His Majesty's Government views 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 the existing
"non-Jewish communities in Palestine,
"or the rights and political status
"enjoyed by Jews in any other country."
This short letter would come to be known
as the Balfour Declaration.
We're going to see how this letter
was carefully crafted,
explore its deliberately ambiguous wording,
and why it has been the topic of both inspiration,
and controversy, depending on who you ask.
For many, the Balfour Declaration was the benchmark
of international recognition of the Jewish rights
to the land of Israel.
It was the first time in nearly 2,000 years
that a great international power
recognized that Jewish people were one nation,
entitled to their own land.
And a few years later, after World War 1,
the new League of Nations,
predecessor to the UN, accepted this recognition.
International law now provided the Jewish people
a legal right to self-determination in their homeland.
Something Jewish people around the world
had been praying for, for almost 2,000 years.
Others, however, viewed this
as a presumptuous act of over-promising
on the part of hasty British treaty-makers.
But let's jump back for a moment.
Why was establishing a national home so important
to begin with?
For nearly 2,000 years,
the Jewish people scattered across the globe,
kept their dreams alive,
to return to their indigenous land,
the land of Israel,
or, as the Romans had renamed it,
after exiling the Jews, Palestine.
For 2,000 years, the Jews prayed
for their return to the land.
They told the history of the land,
they studied the civic religious,
and agricultural laws of the land,
and had maintained a continuous presence
in small communities throughout the land.
And many Jews had returned
throughout the centuries.
From medieval rabbis like Judah Halevi,
and Nachmanides,
to the students of the leading 18th century scholar,
the Vilna Gaon,
to major waves of Jews fleeing persecution
in 1881 and 1904.
These latter 19th, and early 20th century pioneers
purchased acres of desolate swamps,
desert, and soil neglected for centuries,
working tirelessly to make them bloom.
The prospect of international support for this cause
was of utmost importance.
And Herzl had desperately tried, in vain,
to pitch Zionism to the Germans,
the Ottomans, and the British.
And, though Herzl was convinced
that his life's work was a failure,
only 13 years after his death
the Balfour Declaration was issued in 1917.
But what led the European powers,
who had previously denied Herzl
to finally approve a Jewish homeland?
Well, in 1917, during World War 1,
as Britain was on the verge of defeating the Ottoman Turks,
British leaders felt they could use
a favorable boost of support.
In addition to a genuine belief in the cause of Zionism,
as we'll get to in a minute,
Britain's leaders hoped that a statement
in support of Zionism
would help their cause in World War 1
for two primary reasons.
One, the British needed help from the Russians.
And knowing that many leaders
of the Russian Revolution were Jewish
they hoped it would make Russia more pro-British.
And two, the British hoped that supporting Zionism
would help bring the Americans into the war as well.
How though?
Well, the notion that Jews controlled world affairs
was a well-known anti-Semitic trope
and the British weren't immune to it.
But many Brits, such as Lord Balfour,
also recognized the Jews' right to the land.
Balfour believed that Jerusalem
was more Jewish than London was British.
Or, as Chaim Weizmann, Israel's future president told him,
"We had Jerusalem when London was just a marsh."
Now, how did Chaim Weizmann come into the story?
Well, Weizmann, a brilliant chemist, and Zionist leader,
had recently developed a new process
of extracting acetone from chestnuts.
What's so special about acetone?
Aside from its use as nail polish remover,
it was a key ingredient
for the gunpowder the British army needed in great supply.
And, up until the war in 1914,
it was produced from minerals imported largely from Germany.
But with Germany now their enemy,
Britain had to find another source
of large quantities of acetone, and fast.
Suddenly Weizmann's revolutionary acetone production process
was in high demand,
and giving the British government
the rights to his development, without charge,
Weizmann was soon appointed director
of the British Royal Navy Laboratories.
Weizmann's scientific impact
and position in the military industry
soon brought him into working relationships
with senior administration officials in London,
and he became close to a young Winston Churchill,
then first Lord of the Admiralty,
and David Lloyd George,
then Minister of Munitions.
Weizmann's practical nature, brilliant mind,
and headstrong idealism
also won the support of additional key British players.
Lord Balfour, Home Secretary, Herbert Samuel,
and expert on Turkish affairs, Sir Mark Sykes.
In December 1916, Lloyd George became Prime Minister,
and he named Arthur Balfour as his Foreign Secretary.
Soon, the British foreign office
sent a note to Lord Rothschild,
and his good friend, Weizmann,
requesting that they submit proposals
for a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
This was pretty much the focus
of their entire lives,
so they were pretty stoked about the opportunity.
In July 1917,
Weizmann submitted his proposal.
A few months later,
the British government wrote and revised
a few drafts of the declaration.
Some Zionists were frustrated
when the British used the phrase
"establishing a Jewish national homeland",
instead of "reconstituting",
which would imply they had a historical precedent
for a national home there.
But ultimately it was a landmark achievement
for the Zionists regardless.
And the letter approved the promise
the Zionist movement longed for.
A recognition of the right of Jewish people
to establish their national home
in the land of Israel.
Remember that term, a national home,
because we'll come back to it later.
The letter was addressed to Lord Walter Rothschild,
who was then head of the English Zionist Federation.
As we mentioned, in the letter,
Balfour proclaimed, "His Majesty's government views
"with favor the establishment in Palestine
"of a national home for the Jewish people."
And, this wasn't all talk.
Although there were 700,000 Arabs living there at the time,
Balfour deeply believed in the values of Zionism,
as it was rooted in age-long traditions and present needs.
Present needs being rampant anti-Semitism, pogroms,
and the impossible challenges Jews faced in Europe.
And the age-long traditions referring to the Jewish peoples'
three to four thousand year history with the land of Israel.
Now, in a broader context,
with the end of the Ottoman Empire's
control of the Middle East,
vast areas of the region needed to be redefined.
And in many cases, formed into distinct independent states.
It had been 2,000 years since the region of Paestine
had been ruled autonomously by its inhabitants,
before the Jewish exile even began.
Now both Jews and Arabs
laid claim to the land that they had both inhabited
at different points in history.
So, they were good to go.
The British sent a clear message of their commitment
to establish a Jewish state in Palestine, right?
Not so fast.
There were a few problems.
First, it's an astonishingly ambiguous document.
In its attempt to not overstep,
or maybe to evade making an explicit commitment,
the Balfour Declaration left itself unclear
in a variety of ways.
Though Lord Balfour privately assured the Zionist leaders
that a Jewish national home meant a state,
this is not what the document actually says.
Rather it said, "a national home for the Jewish people".
No mention of a state.
There was also no mention of when,
or how this national home would be created.
Details that might have been important to include.
The declaration also stated that,
"nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil
"and religious rights of the existing
"non-Jewish communities in Palestine".
This could be a problem if most Arab leaders considered
any national connection of the Jews to the land
as an impingement on their rights.
Perhaps, most frustratingly,
there was no clear definition of the maps themselves.
No real indication what the declaration meant by Palestine,
which at that time,
included land that would later be lopped off by the British,
and established as the new kingdom of Trans-Jordan.
Aside from wording ambiguities,
there was a very different problem altogether.
It seemed as though Britain had already promised
the Promised Land,
and not to the Jews.
If you've seen Lawrence of Arabia,
you know that back during World War 1,
in order to rally the Arabs against Ottoman rule,
Sharif Hussein of Mecca was assured by the British
that he would gain an independent Arab kingdom
following defeat of the Ottoman Turks.
And the vague area of land he was promised,
from the Arab perspective,
included Palestine.
Right around the same time,
Britain's Sir Mark Sykes,
and French diplomat, Francois Georges Picot,
developed a secret plan to split up the Middle East
into an independent Arab state,
or confederation of Arab states.
In the end they chose the latter,
creating Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia,
and a bunch of other states.
But according to this plan,
the Sykes-Picot Agreement,
most of Palestine would be under
an international administration.
Parts of it would be controlled by Great Britain,
and none of it would be controlled by the Jews or the Arabs.
So when the Balfour Declaration
was subsequently issued in 1917,
the British were promising land
that had already been spoken for.
The Arab leaders rejected the Balfour Declaration,
as they would never feel comfortable
with the Jewish people taking ownership
of any of the land altogether.
Arab opposition grew steadily
and turned into large scale violence,
as riots and massacres against the Jews
erupted in the 1920's.
In the 1930's, frequent riots rampaged
throughout Palestine by both Arabs and Jews,
against each other,
and against the British,
resulting in the Arab Revolt of 1936 through '39,
and the Jewish Rebellion against the British Mandate
in the 1940's.
Later, this would lead to the 1948 War of Independence,
and the eventual establishment of the state of Israel.
The story behind the Balfour Declaration
is a complicated series of diplomatic twists and turns,
and an example of how this small piece of land
can provoke so many arguments and controversies.
But what stands out is that this declaration
helped end 2,000 years of Jewish exile,
and November 2nd, 1917
is a day remembered by Jews around the world
as representing international recognition
of their rights as a people
to their historic land.
Thanks for watching.
See you guys next week.
(upbeat music)