This week, we mark the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, which was an open letter from the British foreign secretary to Lord Walter Rothschild, expressing support for the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine. This language echoed that of the First Zionist Congress in 1897, whose program of political Zionism sought to get the powers of the day to recognize a Jewish homeland.
The controversy surrounding the Balfour Declaration is intense. Earlier this year, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas demanded an apology from Britain to mark the centenary, while many Israelis and supporters around the world will be celebrating the event.
On March 5, Robert Fisk, an outspoken British anti-Zionist, wrote an angry article in the Independent, in support of a British apology. He blamed the Balfour Declaration for the displacement of the Arabs who lost their homes during the Israeli War of Independence, asserting that Britain broke its promise to the Arabs to protect their existing civil and religious rights.
Even among Zionists, there is sharp disagreement over the historical importance of the declaration. On Oct. 21, Anshel Ettenberg wrote an op-ed in Ha’aretz, claiming that Balfour should at most be a footnote in history and that celebrating it whitewashes the fact that Britain betrayed Balfour’s promise to the Jews. He argues that treating it as significant bolsters the false claim that Israel is a product of imperialism.
Among those who acknowledge its importance, there is disagreement about its meaning and its place in history, as well.
On Oct. 17, Ian Black wrote a long piece in the Guardian, which touches on many of the salient facts. While it is far less slanted than Fisk’s rant, it is critical of the present British government’s position and accepts the claim that Balfour led to the Palestinian exile.
On June 5, Martin Kramer published an essay on the historical background of the Balfour Declaration in Mosaic magazine. He argued that the significance of the declaration is misunderstood today, because it is wrongly seen as a unilateral act by imperial Britain at the height of its power, rather than what it was – the manifestation of a broad consensus among world powers that the Jews had a just claim to their homeland.
Kramer’s article makes the point that former U.S. president Woodrow Wilson, the author of the doctrine of self-determination of peoples, himself endorsed the Zionist cause, and that the U.S. Congress passed a resolution with identical wording to the Balfour Declaration.
On such heavily plowed ground, what is there to add? As Black mentions in his piece, the 100-year struggle over the Land of Israel is the most closely studied conflict in history. Because of that, there is a great need to disseminate this knowledge, especially to young people, who may be encountering an atmosphere that’s less hospitable to the story of Jewish national liberation than many older readers may have grown up with.
As long as there are claims that Israel is an imperial, rather than a redemptive, project, it is important for Jews and supporters of Israel to be cognizant of the complex history of Balfour and other major milestones in the history of Zionism. As the hard work of writing the history books continues, the older generation must keep reading and re-examining the facts, as best we know them. We must also beware of attempts to distort and rewrite history in a way that selectively uses certain facts to paint an inaccurate picture.
Let us treat the Balfour centenary as an occasion to read more Jewish and Israeli history. It is critical that young Jews, as well as all good people, remain open to a thoughtful and nuanced understanding of the past. The context of Jewish history in the modern era is indispensable to refuting the distorted depiction of Israel as a European colonial project.