Viscount Robert Cecil, Former Member Baldwin Cabinet, Discusses “palestine and the Mandate”

Copyright Jewish Telegraphic Agency, February, 1930

British responsibilities in Palestine have naturally come much under discussion since the outbreaks of violence which took place there last August. Argument has inevitably centered chiefly upon the undertakings in respect of the Jewish National Home, which obviously introduces a special problem of an unfamiliar kind into the more ordinary problems which British administrators in an Eastern country are accustomed to cope with, and the British public is accustomed to hear about.

Englishmen, inside and outside government offices, are suspicious of the unknown, and sometimes quicker to proclaim their suspicions than to inform themselves about the things suspected. The discussions will therefore be all to the good if they lead to a clearer understanding of our specific duties as Mandatory Power in Palestine, and the sources from which we derive our authority. A good deal of confused thinking on these essential points is, I believe, due to the natural tendency to consider British policy in Palestine from a purely national angle. This no longer corresponds to the facts of the situation, whatever that may have been before the issue of the Mandate of the League of Nations. By virtue of that document, the decision to establish in Palestine a Natioial Home for the Jewish people, which rested originally on a British promise of co-operation with the Zionists, was put on the basis of an international pledge. For this pledge Great Britain, as the Mandatory Power, became the trustee. One effect of this development has been to put our right to control the destinies of Palestine on a footing much firmer than the mere right of conquest. From the Jewish point of view the moral security for the National Home is immensely strengthened. It has behind it the considered support of the League of Nations, and we may add, of the United States, who were deeply interested in this particular Mandate (largely on account of its provisions regarding the Holy Places), and approved it by resolution of Senate and Congress in 1922.

To those who, like myself, have from the first been convinced believers that the policy outlined in the “Balfour Declaration” of 19171 was both right and practicable, this development is profoundly satisfactory. The mere fact of the accountability of British administration to the League of Nations may not in itself do much to lessen the difficulties of government. The text of the Mandate which we administer is, however, capable of doing something in this direction, and it is possible that the value of the very definite guidance that it gives has not yet been fully appreciated, even by those whose business it is to carry it out. In any case it certainly repays careful study by everyone interested in the future of Palestine.

This Mandate has features that make it unlike any of the others, which have a common origin in Article 22 of the Covenant of the League. Apart from the special provisions about the guardianship of the Holy Places, the clauses that refer to the Jewish immigration and colonization are the distinguishing feature of the Palestine document. Without undue metaphor, it may be described as a deed of trust for the Jewish National Home. Arab rights are safeguarded effectively, in a context which emphasizes the fact that they are subordinate, but in no way antagonistic, to the progressive fulfilment of the main purpose of the Mandate.

Therefore the text must be considered as a single whole. To treat it as a set of directions for a kind of administrative tight-rope walking between the Scylla of injustice to the Arabs and Charybdis of faith-breaking with the Jews, would be to misinterpret it in spirit and in letter, and be the surest way to fall into both dangers, and to perpetuate the disquiet which has recently caused so deplorable a setback.

I do not suggest that this mistake has been made. The task of the Mandatory Power is, however, a difficult one. The economic, social and political problems raised by the Jewish immigration are new even in the varied history of colonization. The introduction of an immigrant population on a high level of civilization into the midst of an extremely backward community is a delicate operation. Firmness as well as tact is needed to carry it through, especially after a crisis such as Palestine is emerging from at the present moment. We need not wait for the report of the Commission to feel certain that improvement in relations between the races in Palestine depends upon a general conviction that the upbuilding of the National Home will not be allowed to suffer interruption by agitators. Therefore it is possible that the time is ripe for a reaffirmation of the policy defined in the Mandate.

In that event, a note of hope and confidence in the future might well be sounded at the same time. Even although the vision and initiative shown by the British Government in the first instance have been merged in the wider recognition of the claim of the Jews to achieve their age-long aspiration, the British people may still take a peculiar pride in the enterprise to which they were the first to hold out a helping hand. For a partnership in the re-constitution of the Jewish nation on the soil of the Land of Promise is purely worthy of the traditions of a great colonizing Empire.