The Balfour Declaration – The Beginning of the Arab-Israeli Conflict and a Century of Jewish Power

“The Balfour Declaration was a single paragraph in a letter dated 2 November 1917 from the United Kingdom’s Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour to Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community, for transmission to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland….The Balfour Declaration brings vividly to life the origins of one of the world’s longest lasting and most damaging conflicts”….
For Palestinians, The Balfour Declaration was the beginning of their plight: a century of ethnic cleansing at the hands of newcomers who claim Palestine as their historic home. …. The Balfour Declaration provides solid evidence that the dominance of Jewish political lobbies in world affairs is not really a ‘new development.’ In 1917, at the peak of WWI, it was up to a few Jewish financiers and lobbyists to decide the fate of countries, continents and the outcome of global conflicts. … Some historians suggests that the 1917 Balfour Declaration was at least partially motivated by the British government’s desire to win the support of pro-German American Jews so that they would help to pull the USA into the war. .. the others argues that at the beginning of the war, German- American Jewish financiers sided with the Germans and would reject any possible alliance between the USA and England. “Jacob H. Schiff, head of Kuhn, Loeb—at the time the largest private bank in the United States after J. P. Morgan—declared that he could no more disavow his loyalty to Germany than he could renounce his own parents. Schiff prayed for Germany’s victory. In a statement to the New York Times on November 22, 1914, he charged the British and the French with attempting to destroy Germany for reasons of trade.” And German-American Jews were not alone in the Jewish community. Russian-American Jews also supported Germany in the war. “Eastern European Jews in the United States were equally pro-German. In Russia itself, Jews greeted German troops advancing into Poland, Byelorussia, and the Ukraine… They were expecting Germans will grant them with lands of conquered countries ( as we all know, it did not happened).
“The 1917 Balfour Declaration, calling for the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine, was at least partly motivated by the British government’s desire to win support among pro-German American Jews.” Zionists offered Britain their support in pulling the USA into the war in return for a British commitment to make Palestine into a Jewish homeland in the future. Freedman believed that Germany’s post-WW I animosity towards Jews stemmed from what they regarded as the betrayal and complicity of German-Jewish financiers in their defeat….. 100 years after the Balfour Declaration, Palestinian solidarity enthusiasts choose to avoid discussion on the global Judeo-centric politics that led to the declaration, even though it was arguably the most significant event that shaped the Middle East and present day Palestinian reality. This reluctance suggests that the solidarity movement is itself an occupied territory. Once again, the discourse of the oppressed is controlled by the sensitivities of the oppressor.
NOTE:
Lord Balfour: “British statesman who maintained a position of power in the British Conservative Party for 50 years; he was prime minister from 1902 to 1905, and as foreign secretary from 1916 to 1919. He is perhaps best remembered for his World War I statement expressing official British approval of Zionism.”
Arthur J. Balfour, former Secretary of the British Admiralty, wrote the following letter in 1917 to Lord Rothschild, Head of the British Zionist Organization:
“Foreign Office – 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 favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours 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 sincerely,

Arthur James Balfour