The Asefat Hanivcharim, the regularly elected assembly of the Jewish communities of Palestine, will open its session on May 15, according to an official announcement here. The assembly will take up a number of political problems, including immigration, and also the regulation of labor and employment strife.
The Balfour Declaration has been subjected to various interpretations by Zionists and non-Zionists. Those Jews and non-Jews who try to justify the cautious British policy in Palestine by injecting the Arab rights and claim to Palestine, and by referring to the promises made by Great Britain to the Arabs during the war, forget or overlook the interpretation of the Balfour Declaration given by the man who was most competent to interpret it-Lord Balfour himself.
Among many other striking statements, Lord Balfour, declared in the House of Lords, in 1922, as follows:
“The mandatory system always contemplated the Mandate for Palestine on general lines of the Declaration of November, 1917. It was not sprung upon the League of Nations, and, before the League of Nations came into existence, it was not sprung upon the Powers that met together in Paris to deal with the peace negotiations. It was a settled policy among the Allied and Associated Powers before ever the Armistice came into existence. It was accepted in America, it was accepted in this country, it was published all over the world, and, if ever there was a Declaration which had behind it a general consensus of opinion, I believe it was the Declaration of November, 1917.
“No human being supposes that Palestine is an over-populated country. It is, I believe, an under-populated country at the moment at which I speak, before all the economic developments to which I look forward have had time to take place; and if the hopes that I entertain are not widely disappointed, the power of Palestine to maintain a population far greater than she had and could ever have under Turkish rule will be easily attained in consequence of the material well-being which under Turkish rule were wholly impossible….
“The hopes that I have just expressed with regard to the growth of population in Palestine, with regard to the numbers it could support, of course are based, and necessarily based, upon the amount of capital expenditure you can give to that country, upon the character of the population who are going to make use of the machinery provided by that capital expenditure, and upon the character of the Government under which all these operations will be carried out….
“But it can only do so, I believe, if you can draw upon the enthusiasm of the Jewish communities throughout the world. As soon as all this Mandate question is finally settled, as soon as all the existing legal difficulties have been got over, they will, I believe, come forward and freely help in the development of a Jewish Home.
“That is not going to be a great speculative investment; that is not going to bring millions into the pockets of international finance; that is not going to prove wildly exciting upon the Stock Exchange of London or New York; that is going to be carried out as much, indeed far more, in order to carry out these great ideal designs-idealist, if you prefer that name than to earn dividends or to make fortunes….”
With regard to the charge that the upbuilding of the Jewish Home in Palestine would inflict a serious wrong upon the local Arabs, Lord Balfour declared:
“He told us also that we were doing a great injustice to the Arab race as a whole, and that our policy was in contradiction of pledges given by General MacMahon and the Anglo-French Declarations conveyed to the native populations by General Allenby. Of all the charges made against this country I must say that the charge that we have been unjust to the Arab race seems to me the strangest. It is through the expenditure largely of British blood, by the exercise of British skill and valour, by the conduct of British generals, by troops brought from all parts of the British Empire-it is by them in the main that the freeing of the Arab race from Turkish rule has been effected. And that we, after all the events of the war, should be held up as those who have done an injustice, that we, who have just established a king in the Mesopotamia, who had before that established an Arab king in the Hejaz, and who have done more for centuries past to put the Arab race in the position to which they have attained-that we should be charged with being their enemies, with having taken mean advantage of the course of international negotiations, seems to me not only most unjust to the policy of this country, but almost fantastic in its extravagance….
“Surely, it is in order that we may send a message to every land where the Jewish race has been scattered, a message which will tell them that Christendom is not oblivious of their faith, is not unmindful of the service they have rendered to the great religions of the world, and most of all, to the religion that the majority of your Lordships’ House profess, and that we desire to the best of our ability to give them the opportunity of developing, in peace and quietness under British rule, those great gifts which hitherto they have been compelled by the very nature of the case only to bring to fruition in countries which know not their language and belong not to their race!… That is the ideal I desire to see accomplished….”
The Balfour Declaration with regard to the Jewish National Home in Palestine should now be reinterpreted in the spirit of Balfour’s own interpretation!
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
