Balfour Declaration Centenary
Debate between Lord Turnberg and Baroness Sugg
Lord Turnberg (Lab)
My Lords, I am delighted and overwhelmed in equal measure that so many noble Lords have agreed to speak in this debate. The topic is clearly of wide interest, and I will have to listen very carefully indeed if I am to catch everyone’s fleeting words.
Arthur Balfour would have despaired to know that, 100 years after the British Government’s declaration bearing his name, the Arabs and Jews had still not settled their differences over who has the right to what he described as a “small notch of land” that the Arabs could not possibly begrudge, given their vast Arabian Middle East. There remains considerable controversy both about the declaration itself and about its significance. There are still those who believe that it was the biggest error of judgment that a world power could make, while there are many others who believe it was the most magnanimous gesture by an imperial nation for an oppressed people.
The Zionists see Palestine as the biblical homeland of the Jews, who had been repeatedly driven out, always returning and always yearning for it in their prayers, while the Palestinians see what they believed was their land being given away by a western power whose land it was not theirs to give to someone else—seemingly incompatible aims that the wording of the declaration tried to overcome by offering a home for the Jews with the proviso that,
“nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights”,
of the indigenous population. It was a hopelessly optimistic idea and, at the time, little thought was given to how one group, the Jews, were supposed to protect the right of another group, the Arabs, who were immediately trying to kill them off.
It was not Balfour alone, of course. He had the full support of Lloyd George’s wartime Cabinet—a remarkable phenomenon given that in 1917 the Brits were bogged down in a war in Europe that was going badly wrong. They obviously thought it was important enough to produce the declaration.
It is sometimes said that the declaration was a purely British affair, but that would fly in the face of the evidence. Despite their history of anti-Semitism, the French had already given their written approval for a Jewish home in Palestine, as had the Italians, the Americans and the Japanese, and even the Pope was favourably disposed. So it was not simply Britain and Balfour.
However, it was not a legal document in any way. It was not a treaty and had no status in international law. It was simply an expression of support—the Government looking with favour on a Jewish homeland—sent in a letter to Lord Rothschild. It could easily have got lost at any time.
It was only in 1920 at San Remo and two years later in Geneva when the League of Nations gave the mandate for Palestine to Britain and, furthermore, mandated it to provide the Jewish home there. All 51 nations of the league voted for it, with none against. The League of Nations spoke of a Jewish nation for the first time and of “reconstituting” it in Palestine. Balfour had only spoken of “establishing” it, yet here it wrote of “reconstituting” its ancient rights. It was this basis in international law that gave legitimacy to the Zionists’ claim to a Palestinian home, and it was this agreement that was accepted in full by the UN in 1947. Balfour and his Prime Minister, Lloyd George, had continued to make their presence felt in San Remo and in Geneva, so Britain should be proud not only for the Balfour Declaration but for pursuing it so assiduously in San Remo and at the League of the Nations.
And here is the surprise: the wider Arab leadership were at first very favourably disposed to the Jewish influx, modest though it was at the time, into what they regarded as a small, neglected corner of Arabia. They had welcomed the Jews as their brethren—there was a written agreement between Prince Faisal and Chaim Weizmann saying as much—and the daily newspaper in Mecca wrote of the two branches of the Semitic family, Arab and Jew, who understood each other. It was only when the Grand Sharif Hussein and his son in Mecca realised that they had been duped by the British and French that all that sweetness and light melted away.
Hussein had been led to believe that, if he and his tribes revolted against the Turks, he would be rewarded with a vast kingdom in the whole of Arabia after the war. However, when they heard that their land had been carved up by the French and British in their mandates, they knew they had been cheated. First in the Sykes-Picot agreement and then at San Remo and the League of Nations, the allies agreed that they could not trust the Arabs to rule themselves in such a strategically important part of the world. The Brits remembered that many Arab tribes in Palestine had sided with the Turks against them during the war. However, it was the characteristic British attitude that they knew how to rule over—this is a quote from the League of Nations—
“peoples not yet ready to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of the modern world”,
that justified their actions. Only then did Hussein and his son realise what had happened, and only then did they begin to see the Jewish influx as just another symbol of western colonisation—just another sign of British perfidy—and they turned against the Jews.
It was after that that there was a change in British government attitudes. In the 1930s and 1940s, severe restrictions were placed on Jewish immigration to try to placate the Arabs. The devastating consequences for the Jews of Europe, as they were herded into the gas chambers during the Second World War, changed Jewish attitudes towards Britain from gratitude to hostility, as they saw the escape route for the Jews being clanged shut. However, despite all that, and the attitude of the British Foreign Office after the war when boatloads of refugees were turned away, it remains the case that Israel owes an enormous debt to Britain for what it offered them earlier in 1917, 1920 and 1922.
Britain, too, has a lot to be grateful for. We should celebrate the fact that we in Britain provided the foundations of a democratic state in a part of the world where democracy is in very short supply. I like to think that, despite the problems that have to be overcome if we are to see a just and peaceful resolution of Israel’s differences with the Palestinians, Britain should celebrate the fact that it was instrumental in providing the foundation of this democracy, where religious and ethnic differences are fully tolerated, the only Middle East state where the number of Christians has risen, where gay parades are a feature of life—indeed, the current British Ambassador to Israel was able to mount a float in a recent gay parade in Tel Aviv—and where 17 members of the Knesset, a supreme court judge, many academics, doctors and professionals of all sorts are all Arab, to say nothing of its leading place in science, technology, medicine, the arts and commerce. It is a country with which we share intelligence on cybersecurity and other threats to security, and in which trade links are increasingly important as we move into the post-Brexit era.
It is fascinating to note now that, 100 years ago, it was the British Government that opened the door for a Jewish home in Palestine. A century later, and after years of conflict with the Arab world at large, we are beginning to see the more pragmatic Arab states of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the Gulf states recognise a Jewish Israel. The Arab peace initiative is being offered provided that there is a meaningful peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. The enormous advantages to both of them and to the wider Arab world of a peace deal are there for all to see.
Mr Abbas has to be able to bring himself to recognise what Balfour was aiming at—a Jewish state in Palestine—and Mr Netanyahu has to stop further encroachment on Palestinian land in the West Bank. Will it happen soon? We should not hold our breath, but the fact that we now have a range of Arab countries keen to see it happen must be a positive sign. Will it require new and braver leaders on both sides? I fear that it will. Is it worth all the effort? It absolutely is.
Meanwhile, surely we should be celebrating the critical role we played in the creation of a stable, democratic state in the Middle East that now more than ever needs one. Does the noble Baroness the Minister agree?
Baroness Sugg (Con)
My Lords, this is a time-limited debate and, with 29 speakers, the limit is just two minutes each. I respectfully remind the House that when the Clock shows two minutes, the permitted time has already been exceeded.