2.11.07

The Balfour Declaration , The Israel Lobby, and The Zionist-Saudi Connection

Today marks ninety years since the Balfour declaration had been issued. It is a simple letter from Lord Balfour to lord Rotschild, dated November 2, 1917, promising Jews a homeland in Palestine on which Great Britain had a mandate. Balfour had worked on the declaration with Chaim Weizmann, head of the world's zionist organisation. Great Britain, who tried to rally Arabs against Ottomans during WWI, thanks to the activities of Laurence of Arabia, was able to have on its side Faisal bin Husayn, from the Hachemite dynasty of Saudi Arabia, who later became king of Iraq, under the British mandate. It is this same Faisal who signed with Weizman, on January 3, 1919, the Weizmann-Faisal agreement accepting the Balfour declaration in exchange for kingdoms in the Arab world given to him and his sons under the British mandate.

Faisal is seen here on the right, with Weizmann dressed as an Arab for the occasion.


Much have been said about the motives behind this 'gift' from the UK to zionism. Many suspect that it was the price the UK paid to reward the efforts of zionists for convincing the US to enter war against Germany. But to do this, zionists relied on people placed at very high positions in Germany, the US and the UK.

There are documents showing that many British Jews preferred assimilation and integration to an immigration to Israel. An early dissenter is Edwin Montagu. He was the secretary of state for indian affairs and he told Prime Minister Lloyd George. "All my life I have been trying to get out of the ghetto. You want to force me back there."

What surprises me is that here we are ninety years later with zionists, and some Arabs, playing exactly the same games, speaking in the name of Jews, or in the case of Saudis in the name of all Arabs, leading countries to war, for the egoistic interests of the few...It strikes me also that there must be a structural flaw to that great democracy that was the US in order to have become, over the years, so much vulnerable to lobbying, against its own interests. Absolute power and money are against a healthy democracy and those are the main flaws in the US. The zionist lobby seems to have been playing this game from the beginning but it is in the US that the game became so successful, because of the US imperial aspirations and its money fueled 'democracy'. And what game the Saudis are playing ? Preserving their own dynasty by any means.

"Weizmann first met Faisal in June 1918, during the British advance from the South against the Ottoman Empire in World War I. As leader of an impromptu "Zionist Commission", Weizmann traveled to southern Transjordan for the meeting. The intended purpose was to forge an agreement between Faisal and the Zionist movement to support Jewish settlement in Palestine. The wishes of the Palestinian Arabs were to be ignored, and, indeed, both men seem to have held the Palestinian Arabs in considerable disdain. Weizmann had called them "treacherous", "arrogant", "uneducated", and "greedy" and had complained to the British that the system in Palestine did "not take into account the fact that there is a fundamental qualitative difference between Jew and Arab".[1] After his meeting with Faisal, Weizmann reported that Faisal was "contemptuous of the Palestinian Arabs whom he doesn't even regard as Arabs"."

A comment from Angry Arab on the Balfour declaration.

An update from a commentator on this post on the anti-semitism of Lord Balfour and on the early and continuing collaboration between zionists and anit-semites.

"The Zionists have ruthlessly exploited antisemitism to achieve their aims."


"Many European Jews who lived in Palestine from 1939 to 1945 would have offered anything to save the lives of their family members stuck in Poland and Germany who were doomed to death camps"

You need to read Ben Hecht"s book regarding Zionist collaboration witn the Nazis during WWII. He accuses the Zionist establishment of seeking young able bodied Jews for Palestine and sending others to the concentration camps in Hungary.

Zionism is the other side of the coin and can best be illustrated with a quote by its patron ,the antisemite Lord Balfour in 1918.

"For as I read its meaning it is, among other things, a serious endeavor to mitigate the age-long miseries created for Western civilization by the presence in its midst of a Body which it was equally unable to expel or to absorb. Surely for this, if for no other reason, it should receive our support."

Mr. Herzl, The father of Zionism also said:

"I will say to the German Kaiser: Let us go forth. We are aliens here".

In an editorial article in "Davar", the official newspaper of the governing Israel Labour Party (Mapai). Editor Sharun wrote:
"I shall not be ashamed to confess that if I had the power, as I have the will, I would select a score of efficient young men - intelligent, decent, devoted to our ideal and burning with desire to help redeem Jews - and I would send them to the countries where Jews are absorbed in sinful self-satisfaction. The task of these young men would be to disguise themselves as non-Jews, and plague these Jews with anti-semitic slogans, such as 'Bloody Jew,' 'Jews go to Palestine,' and similar 'intimacies.' I can vouch that the results, in terms of considerable immigration to Israel from these countries, would be ten thousand times larger than the results brought by thousands of emissaries who have been, for decades, preaching to deaf ears."(Lilienthal, Alfred; What Price Israel?, page 47)

As for the Russian Jews, many were economic refugees fleeing the collapse of the Soviet Union. Refugees only had to prove that one of their grandparents was Jewish.

Jews after the collapse of the USSR rose to prominence in politics and business. The First Lady , Mrs. Yeltsin was Jewish so it is hard to argue that the emigration was the result of antisemitism."
(Thanks Issam)

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sophia

you believe that the Zionists have tremendous powers, including "people placed at very high positions in Germany, the US and the UK." But how can you reconcile that with these facts:
- between 1939-45, about 50% of the world's jews were killed by the Germans.

- the UK and the USA turned away numerous boatloads of refugees, forcing them back to Germany.

- Israel has fought at least 3 major wars in which its very existence was threatened, so how can Zionists be so powerful?

Sophia said...

Jenny,

First of all, I was mentioning the context of WWI, and not WWII. As for WWII, there is ample proof that the zionists were not preoccupied by what was going on in German concentration camps. They were pursuing their political agenda. They even offered Hitler a deal at some point.

Anonymous said...

Sophia
thank you for the reply. If you think the Zionists were so powerful during WWI, how did they lose their power by the time of WWII?

Zionists must have been concerned with German death camps, because their own relatives were being killed in these camps. Hence many "deals" must have been offered in order to save their relatives.

But the question is if the Zionists were powerful enough to get the Balfour declaration, how come in the 1930s-40s, the Zionists could not convince England to let Jews escape Europe
and go to Palestine (or England)? It seems that England disliked Jews, so maybe Zionists are not as powerful as you suggest.

Sophia said...

Jenny,

"But the question is if the Zionists were powerful enough to get the Balfour declaration, how come in the 1930s-40s, the Zionists could not convince England to let Jews escape Europe
and go to Palestine (or England)?"

Because by that time Zionists were conducting terror operations against British soldiers in Palestine and against the British authority.

Naj said...

Stop the Second Holocaust

Let's use their own devices! Please drop my way if you have anything in your archives.

Anonymous said...

The Zionists were unpopular and a minority in Jewish communities throughout Europe peior to WWII. They could hardly get 20 people to a meeting.

Nazism is the other side of the coin. In fact there was collusion between the Zionists and the Nazis documented in the book "Perfidy" by Ben Hecht, a follower of Jabotinsky.

The Zionists have been successful in gathering the Jews of the ME and the Jews of Europe.

Russian and Ethiopian Jews are the latest to make Aliyah. Zionists will use any methods to achierve their aims even putting bombs in Baghdad synagogues as Ben Porat did.

In 1982 after the invasion of Lebanon and the massacre of Sabra and Shatila, Menachim Begin was visited by a delegation of Jewish leaders from the US and Canada. Their message was that that the conduct of the war had damaged the image of the Jews and Israel in the West and was making them "uncomfortable".Begin's reply best illustrates Zionist motives. He said that he was glad that they were uncomfortable and that they didn't belong in the US and must make Alliyah to Israel.

When the time is right, I fear there will be a an anti-Semitic incident that will trigger the Alliyah of many Jews from the US to complete the Zionist and Redemptions project.

I had a conversation just yesterday with a Jew and he commented on how the Christian televangelists were so supportive of Israel. When I pointed out that some of them were anti-Semitic and that they believed that after the ingathering of the Jews that only those Jews that embraced Jesus would be saved from death.

He agreed but he said that it did not matter because they served the cause of Zionism which is all that is important.

Like Balfour one can be an anti-Semite and a Zionist at the same time. The Arab kings and princes are partners in the Zionist project and are its main beneficiaries.

Issam

Anonymous said...

to Naj - by "second Holocaust" does that mean you believe that there was a first Holocaust? I think a lot of people in Iran disagree with you.

to Sophia:
"Because by that time Zionists were conducting terror operations against British soldiers in Palestine and against the British authority."

Perhaps this argument is like which came first, the chicken or the egg?

The UK refused to let Jews escape from Nazi Germany to Palestine. Boats were turned back to Nazi Germany. So Zionists did "terrorist" acts.

Anonymous said...

Issam
It's true that Zionism was not dominant among a majority of European Jews, but how exactly is Nazism "the other side of the coin"?

Many European Jews who lived in Palestine from 1939 to 1945 would have offered anything to save the lives of their family members stuck in Poland and Germany who were doomed to death camps.

Over 1 million Russian refugees left Russia because they suffered from anti-semitic discrimination. Russia has been antisemitic for centuries, so Zionists did not manipulate that. History students know that there has always been antisemitism, in the form of inquisitions, evictions, pogroms, and worse. It's outrageous to say it is the handiwork of Zionists, a movement that is about 110 years old.

Naj said...

To Pam:
You think wrongly :)

Ibn Bint Jbeil said...

excellent as always, sophia. i always learn so much. your writing is very valuable in that it organizes history in a clear context, from the perspective of the people, much like howard zinn's "A People's History of the United States," rather than from the propagandic perspective of imperialist powers.

Sophia said...

IBJ,

I try to give as much context as possible, even when I write a short note. I think the news have become ahistorical leading to often radical and misinformed opinions in Politics.
Thanks for the compliment. It does some good especially when I have to write with a tendinitis in my right arm.

Anonymous said...

rzgwglBernadette,

"Many European Jews who lived in Palestine from 1939 to 1945 would have offered anything to save the lives of their family members stuck in Poland and Germany who were doomed to death camps"

You need to read Ben Hecht"s book regarding Zionist collaboration witn the Nazis during WWII. He accuses the Zionist establishment of seeking young able bodied Jews for Palestine and sending others to the concentration camps in Hungary.

Zionism is the other side of the coin and can best be illustrated with a quote by its patron ,the antisemite Lord Balfour in 1918.

"For as I read its meaning it is, among other things, a serious endeavor to mitigate the age-long miseries created for Western civilization by the presence in its midst of a Body which it was equally unable to expel or to absorb. Surely for this, if for no other reason, it should receive our support."

Mr. Herzl, The father of Zionism also said:

"I will say to the German Kaiser: Let us go forth. We are aliens here".

The Zionists have ruthlessly exploited antisemitism to achieve their aims.


In an editorial article in "Davar", the official newspaper of the governing Israel Labour Party (Mapai). Editor Sharun wrote:
"I shall not be ashamed to confess that if I had the power, as I have the will, I would select a score of efficient young men - intelligent, decent, devoted to our ideal and burning with desire to help redeem Jews - and I would send them to the countries where Jews are absorbed in sinful self-satisfaction. The task of these young men would be to disguise themselves as non-Jews, and plague these Jews with anti-semitic slogans, such as 'Bloody Jew,' 'Jews go to Palestine,' and similar 'intimacies.' I can vouch that the results, in terms of considerable immigration to Israel from these countries, would be ten thousand times larger than the results brought by thousands of emissaries who have been, for decades, preaching to deaf ears."(Lilienthal, Alfred; What Price Israel?, page 47)

As for the Russian Jews, many were economic refugees fleeing the collapse of the Soviet Union. Refugees only had to prove that one of their grandparents was Jewish.

Jews after the collapse of the USSR rose to prominence in politics and business. The First Lady , Mrs. Yeltsin was Jewish so it hard to argue that the emigration was the result of antisemitism.

Issam

Sophia said...

Issam,

Thanks for the comment, very much appreciated and informative. I published it in the main post.

Anonymous said...

by "second Holocaust" does that mean you believe that there was a first Holocaust? I think a lot of people in Iran disagree with you.

Not just Iran - but researchers everywhere are slowly coming to their own conclusions about what happened. Namely, that 6 million Jews may not have been gassed to death - but under 300K died from starvation - largely from Allied bombing of German supply lines...

BTW, the largest genocide in history may have been the Jewish opium traffickers profiteering off the death of an estimated 100 million Chinese opium addicts over 150 years.

 
Since March 29th 2006