CHAPTER SEVEN

Building on the Balfour Declaration

At the very moment that Churchill was being impressed by Zionist idealism in Palestine, he was forming a negative view of Islamic extremism as it was then emerging in Saudi Arabia. On 14 June 1921, shortly after his return to Britain, he explained to the House of Commons that a large number of the followers of the new Saudi King, Abdul Aziz al-Saud, known as Ibn Saud, ‘belong to the Wahabi sect, a form of Mohammedanism which bears, roughly speaking, the same relationship to orthodox Islam as the most militant form of Calvinism would have borne to Rome in the fiercest times of religious wars’ in Europe. The Wahabis, Churchill noted, ‘profess a life of exceeding austerity, and what they practice themselves they rigorously enforce on others. They hold it as an article of duty, as well as of faith, to kill all who do not share their opinions and to make slaves of their wives and children. Women have been put to death in Wahabi villages for simply appearing in the streets. It is a penal offence to wear a silk garment. Men have been killed for smoking a cigarette and, as for the crime of alcohol, the most energetic supporter of the temperance cause in this country falls far behind them. Austere, intolerant, well-armed, and blood-thirsty, in their own regions the Wahabis are a distinct factor which must be taken into account, and they have been, and still are, very dangerous to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.’¹

Churchill’s visit to Palestine had sparked a renewed upsurge of Palestinian Arab protests in several towns in Palestine against Jewish immigration. On 18 June 1921 Churchill informed his officials at the Colonial Office that he believed it was impossible for Britain to grant any form of representation to the Arabs that would give them the power to halt Jewish immigration. There was great folly, he warned, in ‘going out of our way to procure a hungry lion and then walking up to him with a plate of raw beef to see how much he would like to take.’

The Arabs were insistent that no other solution than representative government, based on an elected assembly, would satisfy them. It was essential, Churchill wrote to his officials, to say to the Arabs: ‘We want to give you some elective institutions at once so that you do not feel yourselves left out at the present time. But before we can do this we must have an understanding with your Committee as to what is going to happen about Jewish immigration. We insist upon continuing Jewish immigration within the narrow limits now defined as resources becoming available.’ Churchill also wanted to ask the Arabs how they would ‘safeguard’ the British commitment to Jewish immigration ‘from not being interfered with’ by any future Arab ‘elective body.’²

In Cabinet on 31 May, discussing the long-term future of the Palestine Mandate and Arab demands for the immediate establishment of an elected assembly, Churchill had explained that he had decided to suspend the development of representative institutions in Palestine ‘owing to the fact that any elected body would undoubtedly prohibit further immigration of Jews.’³ At the same time, in an attempt to calm Arab fears, he approved a proposal from Sir Herbert Samuel that Jewish immigration would henceforth be limited by the ‘economic capacity’ of Palestine to absorb newcomers.⁴

This was a blow to the Zionists, yet it was not to prevent more than 400,000 new Jewish immigrants entering Palestine legally between 1922 and 1939. For two of those years, economic conditions were so hard that more Jews left Palestine than entered it.

Meeting in London on 22 June, four Dominion Prime Ministers – from Canada, Newfoundland, Australia and New Zealand – shared Arab suspicions of an eventual Jewish majority. Churchill explained to them the British position on Zionism. ‘The Zionist ideal,’ Churchill told them, ‘is a very great ideal, and I confess, for myself, it is one that claims my keen personal sympathy.’ But the Balfour Declaration, he added, was more than an ideal. It was also an obligation, made in wartime ‘to enlist the aid of Jews all over the world,’ and Britain must be ‘very careful and punctilious’ he explained, ‘to discharge our obligations.’

Churchill then outlined his policy as far as Jewish immigration was concerned: ‘We must insist on the door to immigration being kept open, insist that immigrants are not brought in beyond the numbers which the new wealth of the country, which was created by public works and better agriculture, can sustain.’

The Canadian Prime Minister, Arthur Meighen, questioned Churchill about the meaning of the words ‘National Home’. Did they mean, he asked, giving the Jews ‘control of the Government’? To this Churchill replied, ‘If, in the course of many, many years, they become a majority in the country, they naturally would take it over.’⁵

Churchill’s attitude was widely known, and much disliked. Six days after Churchill’s meeting with the Dominion Prime Ministers, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Randall Davidson, Britain’s senior Anglican churchman, wrote to him in protest: ‘I think I ought to tell you that I have received from a good many quarters requests that I should remonstrate against what is thought to be the undue development of a Zionist policy in Palestine, especially with regard to the purchase of land by or on behalf of Jews and their apparent anticipation that in what are called State lands the development will be entrusted to Jews. Even more important is the possible buying out of reluctant sellers if they are non-Jews with a view to giving the lands to Jews.’⁶

Land purchase by Jews was central to the development of the Jewish National Home, and accepted as such by Churchill. It continued, whenever land and money were available, for almost twenty years, before the British Government brought it effectively to a close, over Churchill’s protests.

* * *

A Palestinian Arab delegation had arrived in Britain in July, led by Musa Kazem Pasha al-Husseini, the head of one of the leading Palestinian Arab families, and had taken up residence in London for the purpose of lobbying against any further Jewish immigration. ‘They do undoubtedly represent a large body of opinion in Palestine,’ Samuel was reported as saying.⁷ Just as the Arab delegation reached London, Weizmann was summoned by Churchill to the Colonial Office. On 15 July he wrote to a Zionist colleague: ‘I had a very long argument with Mr Churchill which lasted one hour and a half. As a matter of fact when Mr Churchill first called me, I refused to go, on the ground that I could not discuss with him profitably the situation, because I knew the sort of declaration he would give. Unless Mr Churchill is prepared to grant us definite concessions, it is of no use discussing academic declarations of sympathy. Mr Churchill then called me again, and I went to him and in quite clear terms pointed out to him the vicious circle into which the attitude of the Palestine administration, and of the Government, is placing us. On the one hand they complain about Zionism being the burden of the British tax-payer, and when we desire to lighten this burden by developing Palestine and so increasing the wealth and productiveness of the country, they refuse to let us go on with our work because they are fearing an Arab outburst.’ Weizmann thought that Churchill ‘saw the strength of this argument and after a long discussion agreed with my demand’ that a conference should be called at which Balfour, Lloyd George and Churchill would take part.⁸

On 22 July Churchill, Lloyd George and Balfour met Weizmann, at Balfour’s house in London, to try to reassure Weizmann that British policy had not changed. At this meeting Weizmann protested that the Balfour Declaration was being whittled away, and that Samuel himself was undermining it. Weizmann pointed out that on 3 June Samuel had declared, in an official speech, that ‘the conditions of Palestine are such as not to permit anything in the nature of mass immigration.’ Such a statement, Weizmann pointed out, was ‘a negation of the Balfour Declaration.’ Churchill asked him to explain why this was so, to which Weizmann explained that the Balfour Declaration ‘meant an ultimate Jewish majority’ whereas Samuel’s speech ‘would never permit such a majority to eventuate.’ According to the minutes of the meeting, Churchill ‘demurred at this interpretation’ of Samuel’s speech, while Lloyd George and Balfour both agreed ‘that by the Declaration they had always meant an eventual Jewish State.’⁹

On 5 August one of the principal Middle East advisers at the Colonial Office, Major Young, sent Churchill a forceful minute in which he stressed that both he and the head of the Middle East Department, John Shuckburgh, felt that Herbert Samuel had been pressed ‘not only by Arabs, but also by British officials who are not in sympathy with Zionist policy’ into taking action ‘which was not altogether justified’ in restricting Jewish immigration.¹⁰ Samuel saw the other side of the coin, writing to Weizmann five days later in stern tones: ‘It is essential to face the facts of the case. Those facts in my opinion are that a very large number of Arabs, including a large number of the educated classes, have come to believe that Zionism means the overwhelming of themselves and their people by immigrant Jews, with the consequence that in the course of time they will lose not only their political predominance but also their lands and their Holy Places.’ The Arabs, Samuel insisted, ‘will not accept the fate which they think is in store for them without a fight.’ Zionist policy was not based ‘upon such stable foundations in Great Britain that it can afford to see those foundations shaken.’¹¹

When Churchill received the Palestinian Arab delegation on 22 August, its members were in an uncompromising mood, asking him without prevarication to repudiate the Balfour Declaration and to halt all further Jewish immigration to Palestine. Churchill refused to do either, setting out for the delegation his understanding of the nature of Zionism and telling them in no uncertain terms: ‘The Jews are a very numerous people, and they are scattered all over the world. This is a country where they have great historic traditions, and you cannot brush that aside as though it was absolutely nothing. They were there many hundreds of years ago. They have always tried to be there. They have done a great deal for the country. They have started most thriving colonies, and many of them wish to go and live there. It is to them a sacred place. Many of them go there to be buried in the city which they regard as sacred – as you regard it as sacred.’

Churchill then expressed his view of the difference between the Jewish and Arab positions in Palestine. ‘The Jews have a far more difficult task than you. You only have to enjoy your own possession; but they have to try to create out of the wilderness, out of the barren places, a livelihood for the people they bring in. They have to bring them in under conditions which make for the general good of the population, and which supplant no one, and deprive no one of their rights and liberties. There may be from time to time instances of oppression, but we will create a machine of government where these matters can be thrashed out and exposed publicly, where it shall not be a government of autocracy but of free speech, and of frank and friendly discussion.’¹²

The Palestinian Arabs were deeply disappointed, feeling that their attempt to bring an end to Jewish immigration had failed. Violence broke out in Palestine. Twice that November the Arabs of Jaffa and the surrounding villages attacked Jews in the streets and damaged Jewish property. In response, the British administration imposed a collective fine on the Arabs of Jaffa, and on the Arab villages from which some of the attackers had come. On 17 November Churchill wrote to his officials: ‘Sir Herbert Samuel should be held stiffly up to the enforcement of the fines on Jaffa.’¹³

Five days later, Churchill rejected Samuel’s representations that the political effects of imposing fines should be taken into account. ‘It is, in my opinion, essential,’ Churchill informed Samuel, ‘that Jaffa as well as villages should be made to realise responsibilities with least possible delay. We cannot allow expediency to govern the administration of justice.’ Were Samuel to find it difficult to enforce the collection of fines, Churchill added, he would be willing to arrange for a warship to help uphold the High Commissioner’s authority.¹⁴

Churchill was surprised and shocked when Samuel informed him that the Arabs had been provoked to riot by a hard core of Jewish Communists. It was Samuel’s responsibility, Churchill replied, to ‘purge the Jewish Colonies and newcomers of Communist elements, and without hesitation or delay have all those who are guilty of subversive agitation expelled from the country.’ Whatever part Jewish Communists had played in the Jaffa riots, Churchill told Samuel, he was even more angered by the Arab attempt to use violence throughout Palestine ‘in the hope of frightening us out of our Zionist policy.’ Churchill’s attitude was clear. Britain, he instructed Samuel, ‘must firmly maintain law and order, and make concessions on their merits and not under duress.’¹⁵

* * *

By the beginning of February 1922 Churchill’s officials had drafted a constitution for Palestine that would ensure that no Arab majority could stand in the way of continued Jewish immigration and investment. The Palestinian Arab Delegation continued to lead the campaign against the Balfour Declaration. At Question Time in the House of Commons on 15 February Sir William Joynson-Hicks, a Conservative Member of Parliament, asked the Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, to explain the reason why the Government had promised the Jewish people a national home ‘in a country which is already the national home of the Arabs.’¹⁶

The Middle East Department began its defence of the Balfour Declaration on 1 March, when, on Churchill’s instructions, John Shuckburgh sent a letter to the Arab delegation reiterating the government’s determination not to go back on its pledge to the Jews. This letter, sent with Churchill’s full ministerial authority, stated emphatically that when it was asked ‘what is meant by the development of the Jewish National Home in Palestine, it may be answered that it is not the imposition of a Jewish nationality upon the inhabitants of Palestine as a whole, but the further development of the existing Jewish community, with the assistance of Jews in other parts of the world, in order that it may become a centre in which the Jewish people as a whole may take, on grounds of religion and race, an interest and a pride.’ In order that this community should have ‘the best prospect of free development and provide a full opportunity for the Jewish people to display its capacities, it is essential that it should know that it is in Palestine as of right and not on sufferance.’ That was the reason why it was necessary ‘that the existence of a Jewish National Home in Palestine should be internationally guaranteed.’¹⁷

On 3 March the Arab delegation held a meeting of its supporters at the Hyde Park Hotel in London to denounce Britain’s ‘Zionist policy’. Churchill was later sent an account of how the principal Arab speaker, Shibly al-Jamal, a Protestant Arab who was the secretary to the delegation, was reported to have used language ‘about the necessity of killing Jews if the Arabs did not get their way.’¹⁸

Churchill’s promised declaration of policy came on 9 March. In his speech he stressed that the control of Jewish immigration was an essential feature of his Palestine policy, and reiterated his ever-present fears of Bolshevik penetration into the Zionist movement. ‘Every effort has been made,’ he assured the House, ‘to secure only good citizens who will build up the country. We cannot have a country inundated by Bolshevist riffraff, who would seek to subvert institutions in Palestine as they have done with success in the land from which they came.’ The immigrants who did arrive, he said, ‘bring with them the means of their own livelihood, the Zionist Association expending nearly a million a year in the country.’

Churchill then spoke of the Arab demand for self-determination and representative government, based on a majority vote. This was unacceptable, he said. He could, he declared, do nothing which would involve ‘falling into a position where I could not fulfil those pledges to which we are committed by the Zionist policy. I am bound to retain in the hands of the Imperial Government the power to carry out those pledges.’¹⁹

A month after Churchill’s statement, the Jewish industrial chemist and Liberal politician Sir Alfred Mond, who was then Minister of Health, warned Sir Herbert Samuel that the Arab delegation had become ‘a focus and a tool of the general anti-Semitic movement.’²⁰

* * *

For more than a year, Churchill’s response to Arab opposition to both Jewish immigration and Zionist enterprise had been to find the means to give the Jews a politically secure, economically viable stake in Palestine. It was for this reason that he favoured Pinhas Rutenberg’s scheme to bring electricity to Palestine by harnessing the water power of the Jordan and Yarkon rivers. But when Churchill learned that Rutenberg intended to buy machinery from German firms, he wrote to his Political Secretary, Sir Archibald Sinclair: ‘You had better make it clear to Mr Rutenberg and to the Zionists generally that a policy of placing orders in Germany, while unemployment is so serious in this country, will be used as an additional argument against our providing two millions a year to keep a British garrison to support the Zionist policy.’²¹

Rutenberg took the point, and placed his orders for machinery in Britain. By the beginning of June his scheme was accepted by the Colonial Office and received Churchill’s personal support. The repercussions were swift. The whole Mandate was under attack. On 21 June a Liberal Peer, Lord Islington, introduced a motion in the House of Lords that the Palestine Mandate was ‘inacceptable to this House’ because it was ‘opposed to the sentiments and wishes of the great majority of the people of Palestine,’ and went on to warn that the Rutenberg scheme would invest the Jewish minority with wide powers over the Arab majority.

Lord Islington went on to declare, ‘Zionism runs counter to the whole human psychology of the age.’ It involved bringing into Palestine ‘extraneous and alien Jews from other parts of the world’ in order to ensure a Jewish predominance. Jewish immigration, he added, would be a burden on the British taxpayer and a grave threat to Arab rights and development. ‘The Zionist Home must, and does, mean the predominance of political power on the part of the Jewish community in a country where the population is predominantly non-Jewish.’

Another Peer, Lord Sydenham, declared that the Palestinian Arabs ‘would never have objected to the establishment of more colonies of well-selected Jews; but, instead of that, we have dumped down 25,000 promiscuous people on the shores of Palestine, many of them quite unsuited for colonising purposes, and some of them Bolsheviks, who have already shown the most sinister activity. The Arabs would have kept the Holy Land clear from Bolshevism.’

During his speech, Lord Sydenham warned that the Mandate as being presented by Churchill to the League of Nations, ‘will undoubtedly, in time, transfer the control of the Holy Land to New York, Berlin, London, Frankfurt and other places. The strings will not be pulled from Palestine; they will be pulled from foreign capitals; and for everything that happens during this transference of power, we shall be responsible.’²²

When the vote was taken, the views of the anti-Zionist Lords prevailed, with sixty voting against the Balfour Declaration, and only twenty-nine for it. On the following day, Major Hubert Young, a senior official in the Middle East Department of the Colonial Office, who in 1918 had participated in the Arab Revolt against the Turks, warned Churchill that the anti-Zionist vote ‘will have encouraged the Arab Delegation to persist in their obstinate attitude.’ Unless the vote in the Lords could be ‘signally overruled’ by the Commons, Britain’s pledges to the Jews would not be able to be fulfilled.²³

It fell to Churchill to attempt to reverse the House of Lords vote in the House of Commons, and to ensure that the Zionist enterprise could go ahead under British stewardship. Before trying to do so, he made enquiries that would free the Zionists from a particularly damaging complaint being stressed by the Palestinian Arab Delegation in London. The complaint was that the Jewish Colonisation Association had evicted Arabs from their lands in order to settle Jewish immigrants in their place. On 3 July, the day before the crucial debate, Shuckburgh informed Churchill’s Private Secretary that ‘Mr Churchill may like to know, for the purposes of tomorrow’s debate, that this lie has been nailed to the counter.’ The land in question was ‘mainly swamps and sand dunes.’²⁴

The House of Commons debate on the Palestine Mandate, and on the Rutenberg concession, took place on the evening of 4 July 1922. Churchill had to try to win support for an increasingly unpopular pro-Zionist policy. Sir William Joynson-Hicks led the attack, opening his speech by deploring the fact that the Rutenberg concession contracts had never been submitted to Parliament. It was his wish, he said, to set out ‘the Arab as against the Zionist intentions.’ The Arabs felt that Palestine was ‘within the territories which were to be handed over to the Arab dominions’ once Turkey had been defeated. The ‘real trouble’ was not the Balfour Declaration, but ‘the way in which the Zionists have been permitted by the Government practically to control the whole of the Government of Palestine.’

Arabs who had sought economic concessions had, Joynson-Hicks alleged, been turned away. Rutenberg’s scheme was ‘grandiose but impracticable,’ yet the Colonial Office contract ‘gives over the development of the whole country to Mr Rutenberg.’ Nor was there any provision in the contract ‘for any benefit for the manufacturers of Great Britain. There is no clause providing that any orders should be placed in Great Britain at all.’ Britain had spent ‘millions of money in Palestine, and sacrificed thousands of lives, and after all this no benefit is to come to England.’

Another Conservative, Sir John Butcher, bitterly attacked Churchill for the powers that the concession gave to Samuel and Rutenberg. ‘Is that fair,’ he asked, ‘to the inhabitants of Palestine, or to the interests of the Arabs?’ A year earlier, in the debate on 14 June 1921, Lord Winterton had warned Churchill that once ‘you begin to buy land for the purpose of settling Jewish cultivators you will find yourself up against the hereditary antipathy which exists all over the world to the Jewish race.’

Churchill’s speech of 4 July was a sustained defence of Britain’s pledge to Jewish national aspirations. Dealing first with the Balfour Declaration, he pointed out that there had never been ‘any serious challenge’ in Parliament to that policy. ‘Pledges and promises were made during the War, and they were made not only on the merits, though I think the merits are considerable. They were made because it was considered they would be of value to us in our struggle to win the War. It was considered that the support which the Jews could give us all over the world, and particularly in the United States, and also in Russia, would be a definite palpable advantage.’

In November 1917 almost ‘every public man in this country’, Churchill pointed out, had supported the Balfour Declaration. Churchill then quoted twelve statements, all supporting it, some of which had been made by the very people who were attacking the policies they had earlier supported. Sir John Butcher, who, Churchill pointed out, ‘has just addressed us in terms of such biting indignation’ had earlier been ‘almost lyrical on the subject.’ Churchill then quoted Butcher’s words of 1917: ‘I trust the day is not far distant when the Jewish people may be free to return to the sacred birthplace of their race, and to establish in the ancient home of their fathers a great, free, industrial community where, safe from all external aggression, they may attain their ideals, and fulfil their destiny.’

Churchill told those critics whom he had quoted: ‘You have no right to say this kind of thing as individuals; you have no right to support public declarations made in the name of your country in the crisis and heat of War, and then afterwards, when all is cold and prosaic, to turn round and attack the Minister or the Department which is faithfully and laboriously endeavouring to translate these perfervid enthusiasms into the sober, concrete facts of day-to-day administration. I say, in all consistency and reasonable fair play, that does not justify the House of Commons at this stage in repudiating the general Zionist policy.’

In defending Britain’s Palestine responsibilities, Churchill told the House: ‘We cannot after what we have said and done leave the Jews in Palestine to be maltreated by the Arabs who have been inflamed against them.’ Arab fears of being pushed off the land were ‘illusory’. No Jew would be brought in ‘beyond the number who can be provided for by the expanding wealth and development of the resources of the country. There is no doubt whatever that at the present time the country is greatly under-populated.’

As for the Rutenberg concession, Churchill explained, it would safeguard the Arabs against being dispossessed, for it enabled the Jews ‘by their industry, by their brains and by their money’ to create ‘new sources of wealth on which they could live without detriment to or subtraction from the well-being of the Arab population.’ Jewish wealth, he believed, would enrich the whole country, all classes and all races: ‘Anyone who has visited Palestine recently must have seen how parts of the desert have been converted into gardens, and how material improvement has been effected in every respect by the Arab population dwelling around.’

There was ‘no doubt whatever’ Churchill insisted, that there was in Palestine ‘room for still further energy and development if capital and other forces be allowed to play their part.’ There was no doubt that there was room ‘for a far larger number of people, and this far larger number of people will be able to lead far more decent and prosperous lives.’ Apart from this agricultural work – this ‘reclamation work’ he called it – ‘there are services which science, assisted by outside capital, can render, and of all the enterprises of importance which would have the effect of greatly enriching the land, none was greater than the scientific storage and regulation of the waters of the Jordan for the provision of cheap power and light needed for the industry of Palestine, as well as water for the irrigation of new lands now desolate.’

The granting of the Rutenberg concession, Churchill insisted, offered to all the inhabitants of Palestine, Arabs and Jews alike, ‘the assurance of a greater prosperity and the means of a higher economic and social life.’ He then asked the House of Commons, ‘Was not this a good gift which the Zionists could bring with them, the consequences of which spreading as years went by in general easement and amelioration – was not this a good gift which would impress more than anything else on the Arab population that the Zionists were their friends and helpers, not their expellers and expropriators, and that the earth was a generous mother, that Palestine had before it a bright future, and that there was enough for all? Were we wrong in carrying out the policy of the nation and of Parliament in fixing upon this development of the waterways and the water power of Palestine as the main and principal means by which we could fulfil our undertaking?’

Critics of the Rutenberg concession had insisted that it was for the Arab majority to develop the economic wealth of Palestine. Churchill sought to rebut this argument: ‘I am told that the Arabs would have done it themselves. Who is going to believe that? Left to themselves, the Arabs of Palestine would not in a thousand years have taken effective steps towards the irrigation and electrification of Palestine. They would have been quite content to dwell – a handful of philosophic people – in the wasted sun-scorched plains, letting the waters of the Jordan continue to flow unbridled and unharnessed into the Dead Sea.’

Churchill proceeded to explain to the House that there would be ‘strict Government control’ of the prices charged to the consumers for electricity produced under the scheme, and a ‘severe limitation on profits’ which would, after the company had earned ten per cent of its initial investment, be divided equally between it and the Palestine Government. Once fifteen per cent had been received, ‘the whole profit’ would revert to the Palestine Government, which, after thirty-seven years, would have the ‘full right’ to buy the whole scheme.

Several members of both Houses of Parliament had been critical of the concession because it had not been granted to an Arab company. To this, Churchill replied that before he became Colonial Secretary there had been an application from two inhabitants of Bethlehem, ‘one an Arab and one a non-Arab’, but that they had furnished ‘no plans, no estimates, no scheme at all’, asking only ‘that if there were any concessions going, they would very much like to have them.’ For his part, Rutenberg had produced a scheme, in July 1921, ‘in the utmost detail, and with considerable backing’ and no other application had been received.

Before Churchill spoke, almost every speaker had been critical of Rutenberg himself, and of granting so important an economic benefit to a Russian Jew. Churchill sought to answer these criticisms, telling the House of Commons about Rutenberg and his financial backing: ‘He is a man of exceptional ability and personal force. He is a Zionist. His application was supported by the influence of Zionist organisations … He produced plans, diagrams, estimates – all worked out in the utmost detail. He asserted, and his assertion has been justified, that he had behind him all the principal Zionist societies in Europe and America, who would support his plans on a non-commercial basis.’

It was the non-commercial aspect of the Rutenberg concession that Churchill wished to stress. The offer of a major concession in Palestine, he pointed out, had ‘fallen extremely flat outside the circles of the Zionist followers. Nearly all the money got up to the present time has come from associations of a Jewish character, which are almost entirely on a non-profit-making basis.’ There was something deeper in Zionism than cash and profits. ‘I have no doubt whatever, and, after all, do not let us be too ready to doubt people’s ideals, that profit-making, in the ordinary sense, has played no part at all in the driving force on which we must rely to carry through this irrigation scheme in Palestine. I do not believe it has been so with Mr Rutenberg, nor do I believe that this concession would secure the necessary funds were it not supported by sentimental and quasi-religious emotions.’ Churchill continued his speech with a defence of Rutenberg himself: ‘He is a Jew. I cannot deny that. I do not see why that should be a cause of reproach.’

Churchill, who had spent the previous months deep in negotiations for the Irish Treaty, then told his parliamentary critics in mocking terms: ‘It is hard enough, in all conscience, to make a New Zion, but if, over the portals of the new Jerusalem, you are going to inscribe the legend, “No Israelite need apply”, then I hope the House will permit me to confine my attention exclusively to Irish matters.’ This elicited much laughter.

One argument used against granting the Rutenberg concession was that Rutenberg was a Bolshevik. ‘Nothing is more untrue,’ Churchill declared, and went on to give the House of Commons an account of Rutenberg’s career: ‘He is a Russian, but he is not a Bolshevist. He was turned out of Russia by the Bolshevists.’ Rutenberg, Churchill explained, was ‘one of those social revolutionaries who combated that tyranny of the then-despotic Tsarist Government, and who, after the revolution, did their best to combat the still worse tyranny of the Bolshevist rulers who succeeded to the power of the Tsar. His attitude has been perfectly consistent.’

Churchill held all enemies of Bolshevism in high regard. Since November 1917 the Bolsheviks had not only established totalitarian rule and State terror throughout Russia, but had sought to export their system. For several weeks in 1919 it had looked as if Berlin would become a Communist base. In Bavaria and Hungary, Communist regimes had briefly seized power, imposing the worst excesses of the Soviet system.

For his participation in anti-Tsarist revolutionary circles, Churchill told the House of Commons, Rutenberg had been imprisoned several times. He was said to have been the organiser of the execution of the popular leader and police spy Father Gapon. If it was true, Churchill said, that Rutenberg had taken part in the murder of Father Gapon, ‘who was an agent provocateur, an agent for the Russian police to obtain the secrets of the revolutionaries with whom he was working’, it was also true that in 1917, when he was Deputy Governor of Petrograd, he had recommended to Kerensky to hang Lenin and Trotsky.

After being driven out of Northern Russia, where he had been advising the anti-Bolshevik Russian forces, Rutenberg had gone to the Russian Black Sea port of Odessa. There, Churchill explained, he had been employed by the French authorities during the time of their occupation of the port as part of the Allied attempt to protect it from Bolshevik attack. While in Odessa he had ‘rendered good service in securing the escape of large numbers of persons who were committed to the anti-Bolshevist cause,’ Churchill told the House, and was considered ‘a remarkable man, and very good reports about him have been received. At the same time, I have no doubt that his record is one which would not in every respect compare with that of those who have been fortunate enough to live their lives in this settled and ordered country.’

Churchill then appealed to the House of Commons not to prevent the Mandate authorities ‘to use Jews, and use Jews freely, within limits that are proper, to develop new sources of wealth in Palestine.’ It was also imperative, if the Balfour Declaration ‘pledges to the Zionists’ were to be carried out, for the House of Commons to reverse the vote of the House of Lords. ‘This vote’, Churchill warned, ‘might have a serious result in Palestine. It might lead to violent disturbances … to distress and bloodshed.’ Above all, Britain must keep the pledge that she had given ‘before all the nations of the world.’²⁵

Churchill’s appeal was successful. Only thirty-five votes were cast against the government’s Palestine policy, and two hundred and ninety-two in favour. His speech was a personal triumph: ‘a brilliant speech,’ his Cabinet colleague H. A. L. Fisher wrote in his diary.²⁶ But there was more work to be done, and to be done immediately. For Churchill had next to submit Britain’s Palestine Mandate governing principles for the approval of the League of Nations, under whose authority the Mandates lay. These principles were first presented to Parliament as a White Paper known as the Churchill White Paper.

Serving as the basis of the British Mandate, the White Paper was emphatic in its support for Zionism, pointing out that already by 1922 the Jews had ‘recreated in Palestine a community, now numbering 80,000, of whom about one-fourth are farmers or workers upon the land.’ The White Paper also reiterated the Colonial Office letter of 1 March to the Palestinian Arab delegation in London, that stated: ‘the development of the Jewish National Home in Palestine is not the imposition of a Jewish nationality upon the inhabitants of Palestine as a whole, but the further development of the existing Jewish community, with the assistance of Jews in other parts of the world, in order that it may become a centre in which the Jewish people as a whole may take, on grounds of religion and race, an interest and a pride.’ The White Paper, like the letter of 1 March, stressed that in order for the Jewish community in Palestine to have ‘the best prospect of free development and provide a full opportunity for the Jewish people to display its capacities, it is essential that it should know that it is in Palestine as of right and not on sufferance.’ That was the reason why it was necessary ‘that the existence of a Jewish National Home in Palestine should be internationally guaranteed, and that it should be formally recognised to rest upon ancient historic connection.’²⁷

The Churchill White Paper was submitted to the League of Nations in Geneva, and approved on 22 July. The Zionists understood that what Churchill had devised gave them the opportunity to move – albeit with a long period of continuous Jewish immigration – towards statehood. On 26 July, four days after the Mandate was approved, Chaim Weizmann wrote to Churchill to congratulate him. ‘To you personally,’ Weizmann wrote, ‘as well as to those who have been associated with you at the Colonial Office, we tender our most grateful thanks. Zionists throughout the world deeply appreciate the unfailing sympathy you have consistently shown towards their legitimate aspirations and the great part you have played in securing for the Jewish people the opportunity of rebuilding its national home in peaceful co-operation with all sections of the inhabitants of Palestine.’²⁸

With Churchill’s active and persistent support, the establishment of a Jewish National Home in Palestine had become a reality.