Listening to the BetterAngels of Our Nature:Ethnicity, Self-Determination,and the American Empire

Chapter SeventeenThe Chosen People and the Promised Land

David Steven CohenChapel Hill, NC

“Jerusalem has—for different reasons—become central to the sacred geography of Jews, Christians, and Muslims,” writes historian Karen Armstrong. “This makes it very difficult for them to see the city objectively, because it has become bound up with their conception of themselves and the ultimate reality—sometimes called ‘God’ or the sacred—that gives our mundane life meaning and value.”1 The city stands in the Judaean Hills about 30 miles east of the Mediterranean Sea and 15 miles the west of north part of the Dead Sea, lowest place on earth. It is located on a ridge consisting of three hills: the Temple Mount, the Mountof Olives to the southeast, and Mount Zion to the southwest. Jerusalem contains holy places to three religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Most of these locations are known by different Latin, English, Hebrew, and Arabic names.

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The Mount of Olives (Har Ha-zeitim in Hebrew), located east ofthe Old City, is the site of the Garden of Gethsemane (where Christ was betrayed by Judas), the Mosque of the Ascension (whereChrist ascended to Heaven after his crucifixion), the Tombs of the Prophets (the burial place of three Old Testament prophets), the Tomb of the Virgin (the burial place of the Virgin Mary), andthe Church of St. Mary Magdalene (a Russian Orthodox church builtby Tsar Alexander III in 1885 in memory of his mother whose patron saint was Mary Magdalene). Mount Zion (Har Tsiyon in Hebrew), located south of the Old City, is the oldest part of Jerusalem originally settled by the Jebusites, who were conqueredby King David circa. 1000 B.C. Mount Zion is the Promised Land ofthe Old Testament. It is the site of King David’s tomb and the Gothic Church of the Dormition (built by the Crusaders on the site of Christ’s Last Supper). Between Mount Zion and the Mount of Olives and south of the Temple Mount is the archeological siteof the City of David.

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The Temple Mount, known in Arabic as Haram esh-Sharif (“Noble Sanctuary”), is located in the southeast part of the Old City of Jerusalem. There several gates through which to enter this part of the city, including the Damascus Gate (Bab el-Amud “the Gate ofthe Column” in Arabic), Herod’s Gate (Bab el-Zahra in Arabic and Shaar ha-Prakhim in Hebrew, meaning “Gate of Flowers”), the Cotton Merchants’ Gate, Saint Stephen’s Gate (Bab Sitti Maryam or “Gate of the Virgin Mary” in Arabic and Shaar ha Arayot or “Lion’s Gate” in Hebrew), the Moors’ Gate (one of the two gates that non-Muslim can use), the Women’s Gate (where some believe that St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr was executed), the Golden Gate, and the Gate of the Tribes (which connects to Via Dolorosa, the path Christ followed to his crucifixion). The Temple Mount is site of King Solomon’s Temple. In 586 B.C. it was destroyed by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar, but in 539 B.C. the Persian King Cyrus II defeated the Babylonians and decreed that the

Temple in Jerusalem should be rebuilt. The construction of the so-called Second Temple was begun in 520 A.D. and completed in 519 A.D. King Herod enlarged the Second Temple but it was destroyed by the Romans. Alexander of Macedon defeated King Darius III of Persian in 333 B.C. The Seleucid king Antiochus IIIissued an edict prohibiting Temple worship under the penalty of death. The Temple was re-dedicated to Zeus Olympus. In response aHasmonean family of the priest Mattathias and his five sons led an attack against the Greeks and Syrians. In 164 B.C. Antiochus rescinded his edict, and the Temple was re-dedicated. Across the Temple Mount from the Dome of the Rock is the El-Aqsa Mosque built in the 8th century A.D., which was the headquarters of the Templars when the Crusaders conquered Jerusalem in 1099 A.D. In the southwestern corner of the Temple Mount is the so-called Wailing Wall (the only remaining part of the Temple enclosure built by Herod in the first century B.C.).

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Surrounding the Temple Mount on three sides are various quarters of the Old City. The Muslim Quarter, located north and west of the Temple Mount, is the largest. It was taken over by the Crusaders in the 12th century because it contains sites of importance to Christians, including the Via Dolorosa (“Way of

Sorrows”) as the route that Christ was forced to take to his crucifixion. The so-called Jewish Quarter, located southwest of the Temple Mount, was occupied by the priestly elite during the times of Herod. The Romans had forbidden Jews from living in Jerusalem, but under Arab rule a small community of Jews was established there and it was given its name during Ottoman rule. The Jewish Quarter is adjacent to the Western Wall (Ha-Koltel in Hebrew). During the Ottoman period the wall became a site of pilgrimages by Jews to lament the destruction of the second temple, hence its name, “the Wailing Wall.” In the northwest corner of the Old City is the Christian Quarter settled during the Byzantine period. Within it is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre believed to be the site of Christ’s crucifixion, burial, and resurrection. Within the walls of this church originally built by the Roman Emperor Constantine between 326 A.D. and 335 A.D. and destroyed and rebuilt several times is Christ’s Tomb and Golgotha (the Hebrew word for “Place of the Skull” or Calvary in Latin) the outcropping of rock on which it isbelieved that Christ was crucified. The church complex also contains the Chapel of St. Helena, which is now dedicated to St. Gregory the Illuminator, the patron saint of Armenians as well asthe Ethiopian Monastery inhabited by a community of Coptic monks.

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Fifteen miles to the east of Jerusalem is the northern shores of the Dead Sea, which at 1,348 feet below sea level is considered the lowest elevation on Earth. It is fed by the JordanRiver which flows from the base of Mount Hermon in the Golan Heights on the Syrian-Lebanese border south to the Sea of Galilee, on the banks of which it is believed Jesus was baptized.From Galilee the river flows through what is called the Jordan Rift Valley to the Dead Sea. To the west of the Jordan Rift is the region known as Samaria to the Jews. Here the ten northern tribes of the Jewish people refused to be ruled Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, after Solomon’s death sometime between 922 and 921 B.C.and established the Kingdom of Israel with its capital at Samaria. Amman (the area east of the Jordan River then revolted reducing the size of Israel, which continued until 722 B.C. when it was conquered by the Assyrians. Just north of the Dead Sea andabout four miles to the east the Jordan River is the ancient cityof Jericho, considered one of the oldest cities in the world at which Joshua defeated the ancient Canaanites in Biblical times.

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To the west of the Dead Sea is Judaea. This was where the Kingdom of Judah was established by Rehoboam and the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin that remained loyal to him. Its capital wasthe city of Jerusalem, and it survived the Assyrian conquest onlyto be conquered successively by the Babylonians under King Nebuchadnezzar II (605-562 BC) and eventually becoming a vassal state of Egypt. The same land, which today is still called Samaria and Judah by Israelis including Benjamin Netanyahu, is known to Palestinians and the rest of the world as the West Bank.

The Ancient Hebrews were one group of the Arameans, who originated in Mesopotamia and migrated to Canaan with the conquering Assyrians. The Hebrews came under the leadership of Abraham who was from the town of Ur. It wasn’t until the next generation that the Hebrews under Abraham’s son Isaac became a tribe. The notion that Israel/Palestine was the “Promised Land” has its origins in the Old Testament. The “promise” was made in the book of Genesis in the Old Testament, where the Lord appears to Abraham, who migrated with his wife Sarah from the town of Ur in Mesopotamia to the Land of Canaan. According to the Bible, theLord says: “Unto thy seed will I give this land” (Genesis 12:7). When Abraham was ninety years old, the Lord again appears to him and makes a “covenant” with Abraham and his offspring,

establishing them as “the Chosen People.” He then reconfirms his promise: “And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land of thy sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God” (Genesis 17:8). He even laid out the territory that was to be the Promised Land when he says: “In that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying: 'Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates” (Genesis 15:18).And the claim of the Jews not only to being “the Chosen People,” but also to possession the land including the Sinai Peninsula andas far as Mesopotamia came from what Jews consider the highest authority—God himself.

It wasn’t until the next generation that under Abraham’s sonIsaac the Hebrews became a tribe. One of Isaac’s sons was Jacob, also known as Israel, who had twelve sons. This was the origin ofthe twelve tribes of Israel as well as the name of what later became the Jewish State. The Old Testament states that a famine forced the Israelites to migrate to Egypt probably during the Hyksos dynasty. The Hyksos dynasty fell about 1600 B.C., and under the next dynasty of Pharaohs the Hebrews became serfs. While there is no independent source for the Egyptian exile, the Bible says that they were led out of Egypt by Moses, who also brought to them the religion of monotheism. The more documented period of Jewish history begins with the figure of Joshua, a military commander from the tribe of Ephraim, who crossed the Jordan River about twenty-five miles north of the Dead Sea and stormed the city of Jericho, which was under Egyptain suzereignty. The various tribes of the Hebrews dispersed throughout Canaan—the tribes of Judah, Simeon, and Reuben to the south; Naphtali and Zebulun to the north; and Menasseh and Ephraim to the central hill county. During this period, leaders known as Judges temporarily would unite the tribes to fight a common enemy. One of the Judges was Deborah, who fought off the Canaanites.

In the early twelfth century B.C. there was a migration of people known as the Philistines from the island of Crete and the coastal region of Asia Minor. The name Palestine came from the

Latin name for them Philistina. They displaced the tribe of Dan in the northern part of Canaan. At about the same time the Ammonitesattacked the trans-Jordan tribes of Hebrews, and a member of the tribe of Benjamin named Saul led an effort to expel them. After this military success Saul was crowned king of the Hebrews. Then Saul led a campaign against the Philistines as well as against several neighboring tribes such as the Moabites, Ammonites and Arameans to the east and the Amalekites to the south.

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A rival from the tribe of Judah, named David, married Saul’sdaughter, Michal. Saul became suspicious of David’s motives, and David was forced to flee to the hills of Judah. There he made a temporary alliance with the Philistines, despite the fact that hehad previously fought them. Saul was killed in the battle of Mount Gilboa against the Philistines, and David probably with the

aid of the Philistines seized the town of Hebron. In 1013 B.C. David became the king of the Judaeans and later the ruler of the entire Hebrew nation. David then turned against the Philistines, and after subduing them he expanded the Hebrew nation to the south and north by conquering the Ammonites, Arameans, Moabites, Amaleks, and Edomites. One strategic port that David captured wasthe port of Elat on the Gulf of Akabah. This opened the kingdom to trade with India and the Far East. David moved his capital to Jerusalem. This was the basis of the later claim by the Zionists to Jerusalem and the Negev desert down to the Gulf of Akabah. This opened the kingdom to trade with India and the Far East. David moved his capital to Jerusalem. However, in his old age hissons from different wives quarreled among themselves. One of them, Absalom, led a rebellion against David, until he was killedby one of his bodyguards.

David’s chosen successor was his youngest son, Solomon. As king, Solomon made an alliance with Egypt to take control of the territory of Gezer from the Canaanites, which was an important trading post in the foothills of the Judaean Mountains midway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv today. Another of Solomon’s accomplishments was to build the Temple on Mount Zion, which was dedicated about 953 B.C. According to historian Cecil Roth, “Jerusalem became the religious, as well as the political capitalof the country.”2 Towards the end of Solomon’s reign there were signs that the empire David had created was breaking up. The Aramaeans to the northeast established a new state with its capital in Damascus.

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After Solomon’s death the Hebrew nation divided in two: the Kingdom of Judah to the south with its capital in Jerusalem, and the Kingdom of Israel to the north with its capital in Shechem, later moved to Samaria. In 722 B.C. Samaria was conquered by the Assyrians, and the following year they began to raid Judah. Finally, in 705 Judah was conquered and subjected to Assyrian suzerainty. The Assyrian Empire gave way to the Babylonian in 605B.C., and Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem in 586 B.C. After looting the city and destroying the Temple, a large part of the population of Judah was sent into exile in Babylon. It was in thecontext of this so-called Babylonian exile that the writer of Psalm 137 was thinking, when he wrote: “By the rivers of Babylon,there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion” (Psalm 137:1) as well as “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning / If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy” (Psalm 137:5-6). This yearning for Zion and

Jerusalem was to be remembered later in history during the so-called Jewish Diaspora.

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In 538 B.C. the Persians under Cyrus defeated the Babylonians under Belshazzar. Cyrus then issued an edict allowingthe Hebrews to return to Jerusalem and to rebuild the Temple. Upon returning to Judaea, the Jewish identity began to take shapearound the tribe of Judah, known as Yedhudim in Hebrew, which wasthe origin of the name “Jews.” In 333 B.C. Alexander of Macedon defeated the Persian Empire at the Battle of Issus. Upon his death, Alexander’s generals began to quarrel; and the Ptolemies, who had seized Egypt, took control of Judaea. Antiochus the Greatin 198 B.C. occupied the source of the Jordan River, and Judaea fell under control of the Seleucids dynasty. Antiochus IV became the Seleucid emperor in 175 B. C., and he embarked upon a policy of Hellenization in Judaea. In 160 B.C. the Romans forced Antiochus to retreat from Egypt; and as he retreated to consolidate his rule in Syria, Antiochus sent his general Apollonius to occupy Jerusalem, where he sacked the city. After the Greek conquest, many Jews followed Alexander the Great into Egypt and settled in the city founded by him, Alexandria.

A group of Jews in the mountains of Judaea resisted the Hellenization program, and under the leadership of Judah the

Maccabee (“the Hammer”) they revolted against the Seleucids in 164 B.C. According to Cecil Roth, the revolt of the Maccabees was“essentially a reaction against Hellenism.”3 There followed a period of rule by the House of Hasmonean to which Judah belonged.The dynasty was supported by the Jewish priesthood, who had become wealthy and powerful. It was during this time that two parties developed: the Sadducees who supported the Hasmoneans andthe Pharisees who opposed the Hasmoneans and their supporters, the hereditary priesthood.

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In 64 B.C. the Roman general Pompey deposed the Seleucid kings, and proceeded to conquer Jerusalem in 63 B.C bringing to an end the Hasmonean kingdom. The Romans called the country Palestina. The Jewish population was divided into two areas, Judaeaand Galilee, separated from each other by the Samaritans and fromthe coast by Greek cities. In 49 B.C. Julius Caesar deposed Pompey, and Caesar rewarded his supporter Antipater with Judaea. Antipater, who converted to Judaism, appointed his son, Herod, and Phaseal as district commissioners of Galilee and Judaea, respectively. In 44 B.C. Caesar was assassinated by a conspiracy headed by Marcus Brutus and Gaius Cassius. Caesar’s adopted son Octavian and Mark Antony declared war on Brutus and Cassius and

defeated them at Philippi in 42 B.C. Herod and Phaseal courted the favor Mark Antony. In 40 B.C. the Parthians of Mesopotamia took control of Palestine. Phasael was taken prisoner and committed suicide, but Herod escaped to Rome. Herod, who was a Jew, was named the King of the Jews by the Romans in 39 B.C., andwith the help of Mark Antony re-conquered Jerusalem in 37 B.C. In 19 B.C. Herod began rebuilding the Temple. After Herod’s deathin 4 B.C., there were insurrections throughout Judaea. Under the procurator Pontius Pilate, Jesus of Nazareth in Galilea was crucified as an insurrectionist. His disciples were referred to in Greek-speaking Antioch as Christians, after the Greek term Christos, meaning “the Anointed One” or the Messiah.

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There followed a period of insurrections and suppressions. In 66 A.D. the Emperor Vespasian sent his son Titus to put down arevolt by the Jews, and after laying siege to Jerusalem the city fell in 70 A.D., and the Temple was destroyed. Jews were banned from Jerusalem, and they were dispersed in what has become known as the Jewish Diaspora. A group of Jews held out at the mountain fortress of Masada near the Dead Sea, but they were overrun in 73A.D. After this conquest the populations of Judaea and Galilee remained predominantly Jewish, but it was administered by a Roman

governor in Caesarea. According to Roth, the Jewish state had ended 150 years earlier when Pompey captured Jerusalem.4

There developed what Roth calls “a double system of government” with the Roman Emperors and their officials, on the one hand, and for cases involving Jewish law the Sandhedrin, which was a council of Jewish elders, headed by its Patriarch, who became the representative of the Jewish people to the Roman authorities.5 Under the Emperor Hadrian, another insurrection took place in 132 A.D. led by Bar Kocheba. After three years, theinsurrection was suppressed and Bar Kocheba put to death. During these many rebellions, the Romans enslaved their Jewish captives and sent them to various places throughout the Roman Empire, including Italy, Spain, Gaul, Phrygia Greece, Dalmatia, Scythia, Germany, and the Crimea.

In the fifth century, the ruler of Yemen converted to Judaism. His kingdom was half-Jewish until it fell in 525 A.D. under a joint attack of the Abyssinians and Byzantines. When Mohammed conquered Mecca in 624 A.D. the Jews of Medina was driven into exile. The first Caliphs continued his policy of expelling both Jews and Christians from the land they conquered. In 614 A.D. the Persians briefly controlled Palestine, but they were driven out by the Byzantine Empire in 628 A.D. Muhammad’s successor, the Caliph Omar, defeated the Christian Byzantines in 628 A.D. at the Yarmuk River in Syria, and the Muslims became thenew rulers of Palestine. Once the Muslim empire expanded to include Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Persia, it was no longer practicable to expel all the inhabitants, so Islam became more tolerant. But Jews were forced to wear distinctive clothing, had to pay an extra tax, and were not allowed to bear arms. In 691 A.D. the Omayyad caliph Abd el-Malik built the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount. Within the mosque is The Rock onwhich God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac and on which Muhammad left the earth on his Night Journey.

When the Muslims crossed the Straits of Gibraltar into Spainin 711 A.D., the Jews followed them. Under Muslim rule in Spain, Jews rose to prominence as court physicians and advisors,

especially in the port city of Cordova. In Spain, a large number of Jews agreed to convert to Christianity, but secretly remained faithful to Judaism. They were known as the Marranos (literally, “swine’). In 1474 Isabella became Queen of Castile, and she instituted a series of tribunals, known as the Inquisition, to drive out heretics like the Marranos. Pope Sixtus IV in 1478 issued a Papal Bull authorizing the Spanish monarchs to appoint three Bishops and other appropriate people to implement the purge. In 1490 two Dominican friars initiated the so-called auto da fè (meaning, “act of faith”) in Seville, in which six Jewish men and women were burned at the stake for their infidelity. FrayThomas de Torquemada, who was of Jewish descent, became the firstInquisitor General. In the end, nearly 30,000 people were put to death under the Spanish Inquisition.6 Finally, in March 1492 the monarchs of the union of Castile and Aragon, Ferdinand and Isabella, expelled all Jews from Spain and the Spanish holdings in the Mediterranean, including the islands of Sardinia and Sicily. Marranos fleeing the Inquisition in Spain and Portugal fled to Spanish and Portuguese colonies in the Americas. Soon after the Inquisition followed them to Mexico and other Spanish colonies. When the Dutch conquered Brazil from the Portuguese, the Marranos there became Jews in public. When Portugal retook Pernambuco in 1654 Jewish refugees came to British and Dutch colonies in Jamaica, Curaçao, Barbados and New Amsterdam. In theeighteenth century Sephardic Jewish communities were established in American port cities of New York, Newport, Philadelphia, Savanah, and Charleston.

Many of the Jews expelled from Sicily and Spain sought refuge in the kingdom of Naples. Jews also continued to live in Florence and Venice. During the Renaissance period, the Popes ofthe House of Medici, Leo X (1513-1521) and Clement VII (1523-1533) were relatively tolerant of Jews. Martin Luther immediately after his attack on the Papacy had hopes of converting the Jews, but when they refused, he encouraged his followers to burn down Jewish synagogues. During the Counter Reformation, Pope Paul IV (1555-1559) issued a Papal Bull in July1555 ordering that Jews be segregated in their own ghettos, that the be excluded from the professions, that there commercial

activities be restricted, that they be forced to wear distinctiveyellow hats, and that they be forbidden to own real estate. Aftertheir expulsion from Spain, many Jewish exiles migrated to the Turkish Empire. The Turks made Jews pay a special poll-tax required of all non-Muslims, but outside of that they were relatively free. The trade of the Turkish Empire was left in the hands of Jews, Armenians, and Greeks. Besides Constantinople, Jews settled in Adrianople and Salonica. Jews also settled in Jerusalem, Safed, and Hebron in the Holy Land. Marrano refugees also settled in the Low Countries that were in rebellion against Spain, including the port city of Antwerp. Other Jews followed the Marranos into cities like Amsterdam.

Charlemagne, who became the first Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in 800 A.D., encouraged Jews to settle in the Carolingian Empire. Jewish traders established themselves along trade routes into the Champagne region of France, up the Danube and Elbe rivers into Germany, and along the Rhine River into the Netherlands. After the fall of the Carolingian dynasty, the Houseof Capet continued the policy of toleration. When the Normans conquered England in 1066, Jews from Rouen, the capital of Normandy, again followed the conquerors. During the Crusades a wave of anti-Semitism swept over Europe. In July 1290 King EdwardI of England ordered the Jews to leave England within three months. In 1306 King Philip the Fair (1285-1314) banished the Jews from France. But a financial crisis in 1359 forced the French monarch to allow the return of Jews under crown protection. They were again banished from France in 1394 by King Charles VI. Many of them migrated across the Rhine River into Germany despite the fact that in 1356 the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV in 1356 had issued the Golden Bull which took away allrights from Jews. When Jews were driven out of one principality,they were able to find temporary acceptance in another.

There is archeological evidence of Jews in the Crimea as early as the first century A.D. In addition, Prince Bulan, the ruler of the Khazars, a Mongolian people occupying was is now Ukraine, converted to Judaism in the early eighth century. The Khazar state didn’t last long, and they were conquered by the

Prince of Kiev between 965 and 969 A.D. Arthur Koestler in his book The Thirteenth Tribe (1976) argues that eastern European Jews descend from the Khazars. But Rutgers historian Peter Golden describes Koestler’s argument as “naïve distortions.” Golden alsothinks that the relationship between the Khazars and Ukrainian, Belorussian, and Lithuanian Jewry cannot be definitively answered.7 The dominant view of the origins of eastern European Jewry was that the migrated east from France and Germany. In 1240to 1241 the Tatars, who had previously been converted to Islam, began their invasion. To counter this invasion, the Polish kings invited migrants from Germany to settle in Poland. This included largest numbers of Jews, who were fleeing persecutions in the Rhineland. In 1264 King Boleslav the Pious issued a charter of liberty and protection for the Jews who esettled in Poland. In 1388 Lithuania issued a similar charter. King Sigismund Augustus of Poland in 1551 issued an edict allow Jews to elect their own Chief Rabbi to settle matters of Jewish law. This power evolved into the Jewish Vaad, or Council, which eventually had authority over both Poland and Lithuania.

In 1648 Cossacks in Ukraine under the hetman Chmielnicki rose up against the Polish rulers and the Jews, whom they felt were in league with the Poles. The Poles were Roman Catholic, theCossacks Eastern Orthodox, and the Poles had attempted to impose their faith on Ukraine. The Jews managed the estates of Polish nobles in the region, and they collected the taxes from the localpopulation. In 1654 the Russian Czar with the aid of the Cossacksinvaded Poland from the east while Charles X of Sweden invaded Poland from the west. It is estimated that between 1648 and 1658 about 100,000 Jews were slaughtered in this conflict in which theJews were seen as the allies of the Poles.8 In 1670 the Jews in Lower and Upper Austria were temporarily expelled in 1670. In 1745 Jews were banished from the city of Prague in Bohemia. Underthe partition of Poland in 1772, Austria gained control of Galicia, thereby greatly increasing the number of Jews in Austria.

European Jews benefited from the French Revolution through the Declaration of the Rights of Man. Napoleon brought this

notion of treating Jews as equal citizens to the countries he conquered. When he entered Venice in July 1797 the gates of the Ghetto were torn down. When the Kingdom of Westphalia was createdunder Jerome Bonaparte in 1807 the Jews were given equality. The same happened in Frankfort in 1811. The Roman ghetto was opened and Prussia moved toward full legal equality for Jews. After the French Revolution, the Jews in Europe experienced more rights under the influence of the Enlightenment. The Roman ghetto was opened and Prussia moved toward full legal equality for Jews.

After the Congress of Vienna in 1814 through 1815, conditionreturned to the pre-Napoleonic days. There was a nationalist reaction to Napoleon, which often took the form of xenophobia andracism, especially in the Germanic states. In 1815 Prussia restored many of the old restrictions, including barring Jews from many professions. In Bremen and Lübeck Jews were expelled. In the Papal States the Ghettos and wearing of a distinctive badge were re-introduced. That is why Jews involved themselves inthe Revolution of 1848 in Central Europe. After the unsuccessful Revolution of 1848 in Central Europe, a wave of German Jews involved in the liberal cause fled to the United States. Many began as small merchants and peddlers, but by the late nineteenthcentury they had become wealthy. These German Jews were the founders of the Reformed Movement in America. There was a German Reform congregation in Charleston as early as 1824, but it was under the leadership of Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise in Cincinnati thatthe movement spread starting in 1854.

Again, in the late nineteenth century liberal reform of Jewish restrictions were passed in Baden in 1862, in Saxony in 1868, and in Austria-Hungary in their union in 1867. The same wastrue in the German constitution of 1871 and in Italy where restrictions were removed in Lombardy, Tuscany, Venice, and the Papal States. In England, restrictions were gradually removed, which enable Benjamin Disraeli, a baptized Jew, to become Prime Minister, and Baron Lionel de Rothschild to become a member of the House of Lords. Jews had migrated from Poland to the lower Danube region of Moldavia and Wallachia in the seventeenth century, when they were part of the Ottoman Empire. When Rumania

was granted full independence in 1878, it was on the condition that everyone within the country be granted equal rights. Although Jews were required to serve in the Rumanian military, but they were denied equal rights on the grounds that they were aliens. After the Franco-Prussian War, there was a renewal of anti-Semitic sentiment in Europe. In Prussia, the Christian Socialist Workingmen’s Union was founded in part on the platform of restricting Jewish “domination” in society. There were petitions to disenfranchise Jews, but the only measures that passed denied Jews commissions in the army and leadership appointments in university and politics.

While Peter the Great had been in favor of Jews migrated to Russia, Catherine I in 1727 issued an edict expelling Jews from Russia proper. In the partitions of Poland in 1772, 1793, and 1795, a large number of formerly Polish and Lithuanian Jews came under Czarist control. The Russian Czars in the early nineteenth century instituted a policy of confining the Jews to what was called the “Pale of Settlement” in what had formerly been easternPoland, including Galicia, Byelorussia, and Lithuania. Under CzarNicholas I (1825-1855) a number of measures were passed against the Jews, including the Ukase of 1825 which required Jewish youngmen to serve in the Russian army for a period of 25 years and theStatute Concerning the Jews in 1835 which excluded Jews from regions outside the Pale of Settlement. There was a respite from these restrictions under Czar Alexander II (1855-1881). In March 1881 the Czar was assassinated, and a pogrom broke out against the Jews in Kiev and Odessa. In 1903 there was another pogrom in Kishinev and in 1905 yet another. By this time the Russian Empirehad more than half the Jewish population of the world.9 With the beginning of the pogrom in Russia in 1881 a new migration of eastern European Jews began to arrive in the United States. Many of them settled in New York City and worked in the garment industry and lived on the Lower East Side of the city.

In France in 1894 an Alsatian captain in the French General Staff named Alfred Dreyfus was accused of providing the Germans with military secrets. He was publicly stripped of his rank and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil’s Island. When it was discovered that the accusation against him was based on forged

documents by a German spy named Esterhazy, Emil Zola publicized the injustice in a famous pamphlet titled J’Accuse (1898). In 1899Dreyfus was granted a new trial, but when he was convicted a second time, the French President granted him a pardon. One of the newspaper correspondent who covered the trial in December 1894 was a Hungarian Jew named Theodor Herzl. Herzl (1860-1904) was born in Budapest into a Jewish family that had adopted Germanculture. His family was secular, middle-class and politically liberal. He attended the University of Vienna, where he experienced the rise of anti-Semitism in student ceremonies on the occasion of the death of Richard Wagner in 1883. In 1891 Herzl got a job as the Paris correspondent of the Neue Freie Presse.

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In February 1896, Herzl published a booklet in Vienna titledThe Jewish State: An Attempt at a Modern Solution of the Jewish Question. Herzl’s argument was the assimilation was not working as a solution to the question of whether Jews could fit into European nation-states. Unlike assimilated Jews who maintained that Judaism was only a religion, Herzl argued that Judaism was both a nationalityand a religion. He wrote that the solution to the question was toallow Jews to establish a Jewish state of their own. Initially, it did not necessarily have to be in Palestine. In June 1897 Herzl founded a Zionist newspaper named Die Welt to promote his

ideas, According to historian Walter Laquer, the term Zionism wasfirst used in January 1892 by Nathan Birnbaum in a meeting in Vienna in January 1892.10 Mount Zion was a stronghold built by the Jebusites within Jerusalem that was captured in Biblical times by King David, who renamed it the City of David. In the OldTestament, Zion is referred to as the stronghold, the city of Jerusalem, the “city of God,” the land of Judah, and the people of Israel.

The anthem of the Zionist Movement was Ha-Tikvah (The Hope), which was written in 1886 by Naphtali Herz Imber, an English poet originally from Bohemia. The lyrics mention Zion andJerusalem in the same phrase:

As long as deep within the heart The Jewish soul is warmAnd toward the edges of the eastAn eye to Zion looksOur hope is not yet lost,The hope of two thousand yearsTo be a free people in our own landIn the land of Zion and Jerusalem.To be a free people in our own landIn the land of Zion and Jerusalem.

Ha-Tikvah later became the national anthem of the State of Israel.

Herzl first sought the support of leading Jewish philanthropists, Baron Hirsch and the Rothschilds in France. Baron Hirsch died in April 1896, and Herzl turned to support among wealthy Jews in England. Carl Schorske says that Herzl was an anglophile, which stemmed from his commitment to liberalism. The Society of Jews, which was the corporation he founded as a “proto-government” for a Jewish homeland, was to be based in England. But Herzl didn’t receive the support of English Jewish leaders, so he turned to the Jewish masses for support. However, Herzl was one of the masses. Carl Schorske writes that Herzl had “cool, aristocratic manner” and a “fanatical attentiveness to upper-class forms.” In August 1897 the first Zionist Conference

was convened in Basel, Switzerland. Schorske notes that Herzl moved the congress from the beer hall in which it had initially be planned to the elegant Municipal Casino.11 The Congress passeda resolution stating that “Zionism seeks to secure for the Jewishpeople a publicly recognized, legally secured home in Palestine for the Jewish people.”12 The reason the Zionists called for a Jewish “home” rather than a Jewish “state” in Palestine is because Palestine at the time was part of the Ottoman Empire. From the earliest days of the Zionist movement, Theodor Herzl attempted to buy land in Palestine from the Turkish sultan. At the turn of the twentieth century, Zionists established the Jewish National Fund for the same purpose. The Arabs opposed theJewish land purchases.

In May 1901 Herzl made the first of several trips to Constantinople in an attempt to convince the sultan to agree to this plan. The sultan only would agree to allow Jews to settle inthe Ottoman Empire, but they would have to become Turkish citizens and they could not settle in only one part of the empire. With the failure of Herzl’s negotiations with the Turks, in 1902 he turned his attention to England, where there was a growing concern about Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe. Herzl testified before a commission established to investigate the “Jewish question,” which included Baron Nathaniel Meyer Lord Rothschild. Rothschild told him that his testimony either would convince the commission that Jews could not assimilate as Englishmen or lead to the passage of immigration restrictions. His meetings in London convinced Herzl that maybe a temporary solution to the problem was to establish a temporary Jewish home either on the eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus or the central African country of Uganda. At the Sixth Zionist Congress in Basel in 1902 Theodor Herzl reported that he had appealed to the Sultan of Turkey to permit the Jews to establish a national homeland in Palestine, but that the Sultan refused. He also reported that British leaders had told him that they might allow the Jews to establish a homeland in the highlands of Kenya (mistakenly referred to as “Uganda”), but was opposed by the Eastern European Zionists, who felt only Palestine was appropriate locale because it was the Biblical “Promised Land.”

In April 1903 an anti-Semitic pogrom broke out in the Bessarabian town of Kishinev in which 85 Jewish men, women, and children were killed and hundreds more beaten and raped. In August Herzl traveled to St. Petersburg to enlist the help of theTsarist government to pressure Turkey to permit the immigration of Russian Jews. His attempts were unrealistic, because Tsar Nicholas II, who became tsar in 1894, viewed international Zionism as a threat. While Herzl received a hero’s welcome amongthe Jews in the city of Vilna, the anti-Zionist Jewish Socialistsknown as the Bund, opposed the nationalist aspirations of Zionismas opposed to the concept of working-class solidarity. Theodor Herzl died in July 1904, and the Seventh Zionist Congress meetingin July 1905 decided that only Palestine was to be the Jewish homeland. “The battle between Zionists and Bundists for the sympathy of the masses in the Pale of Settlement now began in earnest,” writes Dan Kurzman. “Both groups had long been caching arms, the Bund mainly to back the budding Russian revolution and the Poalei Zion [the Marxist Workers Party of Zion] to thwart the infectious spread of pogroms; now a fratricidal war between Jews threatened to erupt.”13

David Ben-Gurion as a young man,http://jimenaexperience.org/egypt/files/2010/10/Egypt84.jpg

David Ben-Gurion was born in the town of Polonka in what is today east-central Poland, then part of the Russian Empire. It was a factory town of 12,000 people a little more than half Jews and the rest Poles. The Jews lived in the center of the town and the Poles on the outskirts. The town had experienced anti-Semiticpogroms during the seventeenth century and again between 1881 and1884 under Tzar Alexander III. Ben-Gurion’s name at birth was David Green. His mother was the daughter of a prosperous, Jewish landowner and his father an unlicensed Jewish legal counsel, or “fixer,” who represented Jews in their dealings with the Russian authorities. His father was influenced by the Haskala, or Jewish Enlightenment, which, according to Dan Kurzman, “sought to merge Jewish tradition with modern secular thought, to reconcile Judaism to the new age.”14 The members of the Haskala looked for deliverance by studying the Hebrew language and Russian literature, especially Leo Tolstoy’s Resurrection. When Theodore Herzl published his booklet The Jewish State in 1896 and organized the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, both David Green and his father embraced the Zionist Movement.

As a teenage youth, Ben-Gurion and his two friends Shmuel Fuchs and Shlomo Zemach in December 1900 organized what they called the Ezra Society, named after the Biblical prophet Ezra, who founded the Second Temple. They vowed only to speak Hebrew toeach other and to teach Hebrew and Zionism to the children. Both Shmuel and Shlomo came from Hassidic families that disapproved ofZionism thinking that it was preempting God’s will to establish aJewish state prematurely. Their first meeting was broken up by Hassidic youths, who attacked them violently. Kurzman writes: “The Yiddish-speaking Hassidim, who viewed Hebrew as a language to be spoken only in prayer, were outraged, especially when many children dropped their Talmudic studies. They envisioned the whole traditional social and religious order crumbling into Zionist heresy.”15

Shmuel Fuchs was the first to leave the town of Plonsk to goto Palestine in May 1904, but he ended up in New York instead anddecided to stay there. Ben-Gurion decided to continue his studies

in Warsaw, but he was turned down by Russian high schools there because of a “Jewish quota.” In November 1904 Shlomo Zemach visited Ben-Gurion in Warsaw, saying that he was leaving for Palestine, and Ben-Gurion helped him obtain a forged passport. Ben-Gurion was in Warsaw in January 1905, when Polish socialists,including many Jews, joined in an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the Tsarist government that was suppressed by Cossack troops. Ben-Gurion was arrested and briefly detained in prison with Bund members even though he didn’t agree with their policies. Later that year, Ben-Gurion joined the newly organized Poalei Zion Party. Ben-Gurion returned to his native town of Plonskto recruit members for the Poalei Zion. While he was there he organized a strike among the local seamstresses in which they managed to win a 12-hour day instead of 18 hours for the same pay. Also, he convinced the Ezra Society to obtain weapons in case their efforts would result in another pogrom.

In the summer of 1906 Ben-Gurion and a small party of friends left Plonsk en route to the Black Sea port city of Odessa, where they obtained forged passports to travel by Russiancargo ship to Palestine. When they arrived in the port city of Jaffa in September they were greeted by members of the two socialist parties: the Marxist Poalei Zion and the non-Marxist Hapoel Hatzair (‘Working Youth”). After a few days in Jaffa, Ben-Gurion and his party traveled to Petah Tikva (“Gate of Hope”), one of about 20 Jewish settlements in Judea in central Palestine. Thesettlement was founded in 1878 during what was called the First Aliya (“Going Up”), a reference to the first wave of Zionist immigration to Palestine. These early settlers had been financed by the French Jewish banker, Baron Edmond de Rothschild, who was a philanthropist, rather than a Zionist. Ben-Gurion was disillusioned to find that most of the Jewish settlers in Petah Tikva were hiring Arab workers rather than other Jews to work the land. Ben-Gurion wrote that these First Aliya settlers “had become speculators and shopkeepers trafficking in the hopes of their people and selling their own youthful aspiration for base silver.”16 As early as the 1880s the Jews who settled in Palestine sought to purchase land in establishment settlements.

The Arabs who lived there became tenant farmers, and often the new owners evicted the tenants.

Unused to hard physical labor and the new environment, Ben-Gurion came down with a case of malaria, and he lost his job and had trouble finding work. So he began to involve himself with thelocal Poalei Zion party, and he tried to convince the workers to pool their earnings. He also attempted to merge the two socialistparties, that is, the Poalei Zion Party (which was Marxist) with the Hapoel Hatzair Party (which didn’t want to be part of an international movement) into a single party. The Poalei Zion held its first conference in Jaffa in October 1906. A major faction were Russians from the town of Rostov, who spoke only Russian (rather than Hebrew or Yiddish) and wanted to establish communes including both Jews and Arabs. Ben-Gurion disagreed with them, maintaining that the party must merge with non-Marxists, speak only Hebrew, and establish a Jewish state. Ben-Gurion won on the issue of a Jewish state, but not on merging with non-Marxists andmaking Hebrew the national language.

In an attempt to find work, Ben-Gurion moved to a cooperative settlement of Sejera established by the Paris-based Jewish Colonization Association in the Galilee. Ben-Gurion felt that the settlement should be protected by its own armed force rather than the Circassians, who lived in the neighboring villageof Kfar Kana, or the Bar-Giora, a secret defense organization named after the last Jewish defender of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.Ben-Gurion returned to Poland, when he was drafted into the Russian army and his father who remained in Plonsk was liable to be fined if he didn’t report for duty. However, once he was conscripted into the army, Ben-Gurion deserted thus freeing his father from responsibility for his son’s actions. Ben-Gurion thenfled back to Palestine. In 1909 Ben-Gurion returned to the model farm of Sejera, where he organized his own armed guard to replacethe Circassians. In April of that year, during the Passover celebration, three Jews from Haifa were attacked and robbed by three Arabs in which one of the Arabs was shot and killed. This was followed by another attack in which a Jewish village watchmannamed Israel Korngold was shot and killed and another killed in

the ensuing chase. “That day opened my eyes,” Ben-Gurion later stated. “I realized that sooner or later there would be a trial of strength between us and the Arabs.”17

After several unsuccessful attempts to organize strikes, Ben-Gurion accepted an offer to move to Jerusalem to help edit along with a fellow Russian émigré named Yitzah Ben-Zvi a Hebrew-language newspaper named Ahdut (“Unity’). It was in this capacitythat he changed his name from David Green to David Ben-Gurion (literally, “son of a lion cub”) after Yosef Ben-Gurion, who led the Jewish revolt against the Romans in 66 A.D. During this time,Ben-Gurion came to the opinion that the Jews in Palestine should align themselves with the Young Turks in Istanbul with the aim ofestablishing an autonomous Jewish homeland. In order to prepare to became a Turkish citizen and then a candidate for the Turkish parliament, Ben-Gurion decided to go to Istanbul to study Turkishlaw. He arrived there in August 1912, and managed to gain admission to the University of Constantinople law school with a forged high school certificate from Russia.

In attempting a short trip back to Palestine in July 1914, he was informed aboard a Russian ship that war had broken out in Europe. Back in Jerusalem, Ben-Gurion and his colleagues were afraid that if Turkey entered the war against Russia, there was achance that Palestine might become part of the Russian Empire from which many Jews had fled. When Turkey entered the war on theside of Germany and Austria-Hungary in October 1914, the Turkish sultan declared a jihad (holy war) against the “infidels,” which included the Jews. The Turkish government send Jamal Pasha to Palestine to prevent an insurrection against Turkish rule. When Jamal ordered the Ahdut newspaper to publish a statement declaring Zionists the “enemies of Turkey,” the editors, including Ben-Gurion, published it, but refused to distribute thenewspaper. In February 1915, Ben-Gurion and Ben-Zvi were arrestedby the Ottoman authorities and deported. They decided to go to the United States to establish a volunteer force to fight on the side of Turkey.

Ben-Gurion and his colleague Yitzak Ben-Zvi left the port ofJaffa in March. They stopped first at British-controlled Egypt, where they found that Jewish leaders there want to fight on the side of the British against the Turks. In Cairo Josef Trumpeldor had organized a Jewish Mule Corps to support the British at the invasion of Gallipoli, and in London Vladimir Jabotinsky was raising a Jewish Legion to fight to against the Turks in Palestine. In May 1915 wearing Turkish fezzes, Ben-Gurion and Ben-Zvi arrived in New York City, where they were treated as celebrities. They then traveled to other cities in the United States and Canada, debating Jewish anti-Zionists and trying to enlist young men in a Jewish army. While he was in America, Ben-Gurion’s book Yizkor (“Remembrance”) was published, and he began to write another book with Ben-Zvi titled Eretz Yisrael—The Land of Our Future. He also met a young Jewish anarchist named Pauline Munweiss whom he married in December 1917 in New York City.

In the spring of 1917, the Turks launched an attack on the British-held Suez Canal. The British repelled the attack and proceeding under the command of General Sir Edmund Allenby to launch an attack on the Ottoman Empire via the Sinai desert. The British conquered Gaza and Be’ersheba and by mid-November they reached Jaffa and Tel Aviv. Two events convinced Ben-Gurion to switch his allegiance from Turkey to Britain. In April 1917 the United States as Britain’s ally declared war on Germany, and in November the Balfour Declaration was made public. The Balfour Declaration was actually a short letter sent in October 1917 fromthe British foreign secretary, Arthur Balfour, to the wealthy British Jew Lord Lionel Walter Rothschild, announced the following British policy: “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 attainment of this object.” The man most responsible for obtaining this declaration was a Russian-born Jewish chemist named Chaim Weizmann. Weizmann was born outside Pinsk (then in Russia, now in Poland), studied chemistry in Germany, and immigrated to Britain, where he impressed the British with his discovery of synthetic acetone needed in the manufacture of munitions. Weizmann met Herzl at the second Congress in Basel in

1898 and later wrote about him. “As a personality he was both powerful and naïve. He was powerful in the belief that he had been called by destiny to this piece of work. He was naïve . . .in his schematic approach to Zionism. As he saw it . . . [t]he rich Jews had considerable influence in the councils of the nations. And then there was the Sultan of Turkey, who always wanted money, and who was in possession of Palestine. What was more logical then, than to get the rich Jews to give the Sultan money to allow the poor Jews to go to Palestine?”18 Weizmann disagreed with Herzl about considering a Jewish homeland in Uganda; he considered the only possible place was the Promised Land of Palestine.

Chaim Weizmannhttp://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/COLDweizman.GIF

Weizmann developed a process for large-scale production of acetone, an ingredient in explosives. The British were running short on explosives during World War I, and Weizmann made it available to the British government at no charge. The only thing Weizmann asked from Lloyd George in exchange was Lloyd George’s support for the Zionist cause. Lloyd George in his memoirs suggested that his interest in Zionism dates from Weizmann came to work for the Ministry of Munitions in 1917. But Weizmann denies this interpretation, stating the Lloyd George’s “narrativemakes it appear that the Balfour Declaration was a reward given by the Government when Mr. Lloyd George became Prime Minister,

for my services to England. I almost wish that it had been as simple as that, and that I had never known the heartbreaks, the drudgery and the uncertainities which preceded the Declaration.”19

Among the Jews in Britain only a minority were Zionists. There was a small elite of wealthy Jews in London’s West End, which included the Rothschilds, the Montefiores, the Samuels, andthe Montagus. Some of them held high positions in the British government, including Herbert Samuel and Edwin Montague who served in Asquith’s cabinet. Herbert Henry Asquith was the Liberal prime minister of Britain from 1908 to 1916. In May 1915 he formed a coalition government with the Conservatives. Edwin Montagu was a Jewish anti-Zionist who served in Lloyd George’s coalition government. Claude Montefiore was the president of the Anglo-Jewish Association; he was in favor of Jewish assimilation as opposed to Zionism. Herbert Samuel was an assimilated British Jew who was the home secretary in Asquith cabinet. He was Weizmann main contact to important British officials. Once World War One broke out in August 1914, Herbert Samuel became a promoter of Zionism from within the British cabinet, and he eventually became Britain’s first High Commissioner in Palestine.

Lucien Wolf was the director of the Conjoint Foreign Committee of British Jews. He was the son of a Bohemian pipe manufacturer who fled to England after the unsuccessful Revolution of 1848. Lucien was a secular Jew who nevertheless advocated for Jewish causes. Yet as a Liberal he felt that anti-Semitism could be overcome and therefore there was no need for Jews to be Zionists. Both Weizmann and Wolf competed for the ear of the British Foreign Office. Wolf argued that his Conjoint Committee was the only body authorized to speak for the Jewish community in the British Empire. In May 1917 the Conjoint Committee issued a statement attacking “the Zionist theory which regards all the Jewish communities of the world as constituting one homeless nationality, incapable of complete social and political identification with the nations among whom the dwell.”20

Weizmann thought that his greatest allies were not these assimilated Jews, but non-Jews in the British cabinet, such as Sir Mark Sykes, who was a devout Catholic, and Welsh Lloyd Georgeand the Scottish Arthur Balfour, who were predisposed to Zionism because of their Old Testament readings. Prime Minister David Lloyd George wanted to repudiate the Sykes-Picot Agreement, arguing that physical occupation trumped any agreements. He wanted Britain to control Palestine, and towards that end he was in support of the establishment of a Jewish homeland there. In 1902 the Zionist leader Theodore Herzl had retained the services of Lloyd George to lobby the British government for establishing a Jewish homeland next to Palestine at the edge of the Sinai Peninsula. He tried again in 1906 to no avail. The proposal was rejected by the British Foreign Office as impractical. After Lloyd George became prime minister the Zionist proposal was renewed by Weizmann.

In the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916, Britain and France decided to divide the Arab parts of the Ottoman Empire with Britain getting Mesopotamia (including Baghdad and Basra), and Palestine and Syria, Lebanon, Mosul in northern Iraq, and Jordan would have local Arab leaders under French supervision. Palestine would be administered internationally. From the British point of view this resulted in France being a buffer against Russia, but the British had second thoughts. The Russian Revolution in the spring of 1917, which overthrew the Czar in St.Petersburg, promised a new age of equality for the Russian Jews. When the Bosheviks took control in November of the same year a civil war broke out in Russia. The so-called White Army under thepro-Czarist General Denikin committed atrocities against the Jewish population in Ukraine. In the aftermath of World War I, more than half the 5 million Jews formerly living within Russia were now back in the newly created republic of Poland. After Russia make a separate peace, the British no longer needed Franceas a buffer.

James Aratoon Malcolm, an Armenian born in Persia who moved to Great Britain and lobbied for Armenian interests during World War One, introduced Weizmann to Sir Mark Sykes in early 1917.

Sir Mark was not initially sympathetic to Zionism, but he eventually came to the conclusion that the Allied cause would benefit from the support of the World-wide Jewish community. “In short, Sykes’s exposure to Zionism at a crucial moment in the war,” writes Jonathan Schneer, “led him to adapt, but hardly to relinquish, his prewar prejudices and stereotypical thinking about Jews. He continued to believe in their enormous if subterranean power, but where previously he had deemed ‘Great Jewry’ a malign force, now he discerned its positive dimensions and wished to harness them.”21 Sykes also came to believe that the cause of Armenian nationalism and Arab nationalism could alsobe used to the advantage of the British Empire.

In February 1917 Weizmann, who was elected President of the British Zionist Federation, and other British Zionists met with Ronald Sykes about the issue. Sykes told them that getting France’s agreement was going to be a stumbling block. Sykes introduced Zionist leader Nahum Sokolow to François Georges Picot, who told him that a Jewish settlement in Palestine was feasible. “Within two months,” writes Fromkin, “the Czar was overthrown and the United States had entered the war. Sykes quickly saw the implications of both events for his arrangements with Picot. Millions of Jews lived within the Czarist Empire; their support, Sykes argued after the Russian Revolution in March, could help induce the new Russian government to remain in the war.”22 When the Zionists and the Arabs learned about the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement in April 1917 (not in December when the Bolsheviks published the details), both parties were outraged.

Weizmann says that the House of Rothschild was divided on the issue of Zionism. James Rothschild, who was a British MP, wassupportive of the establishment of a Hebrew University as the representative of his father Baron Edmond Rothschild of Paris. James’s wife Dorothy was a close friend of Lady Crewe, whose husband Lord Crewe was a friend of both Asquith and Lloyd George.Leopold Rothschild and his wife, on the other hand, were “furiously anti-Zionist.” But Nathaniel Rothschild, the English lord, was friendly to the Zionists. Prior to the war he had

contacted Baron Edmond de Rothschild in Paris to advocate for a Hebrew university in Jerusalem. Weizmann also knew the baron’s son, James, whose wife Dorothy contacted Charles Rothschild of the London branch of the family. Charles’s older brother, Walter Lionel Rothschild, to whom the Balfour Declaration was addressed.

Nahum Sokolow was a Polish Jew who was on the actions committee (executive board) of the World Zionist Organization. Weizmann and Sokolow drafted a statement that Lord Rothschild sent to the British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour. Weizmann first met Arthur James Balfour in 1906 in London. Balfour was a supporter of British imperialism, but he like Weizmann and he presented it before the War Cabinet for approval. The original draft stated that “His Majesty’s Government accepts the principlethat Palestine should be reconstituted as the National Home of the Jewish people.” It continued, “His Majesty’s Government will use its best endeavors to secure the achievement of this object and will discuss the necessary methods and means with the Zionistorganization.”23 However, the War Cabinet changed the wording. Itremoved the word “reconstituted” because it implied an unbroken occupancy of Palestine by the Jewish people. Instead of “the National Home of the Jewish people,” the wording was changed to “a National Home for the Jewish people.” The cabinet also removedany reference to the Zionist Organization and added wording to ensure that nothing would be done to damage the interests of the Arab population of Palestine. Nevertheless, the cabinet approved of the declaration with these modifications. The only dissenter was Edwin Montagu who had recently been appointed secretary of state for India. In October 1917, Arthur Balfour, British foreignsecretary, announced the British policy in a brief letter to LordLionel Walter Rothschild, a wealthy British Jew, which became known as the Balfour Declaration.

Arthur Balfourhttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/Arthur_Balfour,_photo_portrait_facing_left.jpg

The Balfour Declaration stated that the “national home” for Jews would be established in Palestine, but it was unclear whether that meant all of Palestine or part of Palestine. Furthermore, the declaration also stated that it should not prejudice the civil or religious rights of Arabs in Palestine. Margaret Macmillan writes: “The words had been chose with great care. ‘National home,’ as the British government insisted repeatedly, did not mean a state. Weizmann and other Zionist leaders were equally careful. There was no intention, they said, of creating a Jewish state right away. It might be different, of course, in some distant future, when more Jews had emigrated to Palestine.”24 In his autobiography, Chaim Weizmann blamed this change in language on what he calls assimilationist Jews of Britain, including Lord Edwin Montagu, who believed that Judaism was solely a religion, not a nationality.25

One of the critics of the Balfour Declaration was Lord George Nathaniel Curzon, who warned that promising a “National

home” would eventually cause trouble for Britain, because the Arab inhabitants of Palestine would not agree to be dispossessed.Furthermore, the British High Commissioner in Egypt through the good offices of a militia attaché named T. E. Lawrence had promised the sharif of Mecca in October 1915 that the Arabs wouldbe guaranteed independence if they would support militarily the British fight against the Turks. There was some dispute about whether Palestine was included in this guarantee. Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Arthur Henry McMahon, who had been appointed British High Commissioner in Egypt, said it wasn’t, and the Arabs said itwas. Sir Edward Grey, who was the Foreign Secretary in the Liberal Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith’s cabinet, instructed McMahon that under any peace arrangement “the Arabian Peninsula and its Moslem Holy Places should remain in the hands of an independent Sovereign Moslem state.”26

Weizmann acknowledges that Lloyd George stated in his memoirs that Balfour understood the term “National Home” “to meansome form of British, American or other protectorate.” Furthermore, Lloyd George went on to say of the Imperial War Cabinet that “[i]t was not their idea that a Jewish State should be set up immediately by the Peace Treaty without reference to the wishes of the majority of the inhabitants,” which at that time were the Arabs. On the other hand, Lloyd George stated: “the notion that Jewish immigration would have to be artificiallyrestricted in order that the Jews should be a permanent minority never entered the head of anyone engaged in framing the policy.”27

Henry Morgenthau was the American Jew who served as the ambassador to Turkey from 1913 to 1916. In1917 he led a delegation sent to Turkey to negotiate a separate peace with the Ottoman Empire. Weizmann intercepted him at Gibraltar and convinced him to abandon the plan.

Meanwhile, Ben-Gurion still in the United States approached Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis to broach the idea of a Jewish battalion in the American army with President Woodrow Wilson. Wilson responded that the United States had not declared

war on Turkey, so if Jews wanted to fight in Palestine, they needed to approach Britain. In February 1918 Britain agreed to form a Jewish Legion to fight against the Turks in Palestine, although the British General Edmund Allenby already had captured Jaffa. The so-called Jewish Legion, a specially recruited unit ofthe Royal Fusiliers, accompanied the British forces from Egypt that captured Jerusalem. Weizmann differed with Vladimir Jabotinsky, a Russian journalist who helped found the Jewish Legion, over whether a Jewish state should be declared immediately. In April Ben-Gurion enlisted in the Jewish Legion, despite the fact that his new wife was pregnant. He was sent to Canada for training and then to Tel-el-Kebir in the Egyptian desert east of Cairo. There he met for the first time Berl Katzenelson, who had arrived as part of the Palestinian battalionof the Jewish Legion. Although stationed in Egypt, Ben-Gurion andKatzenelson shuttled back and forth to Palestine in an attempt toform a unity party of labor oriented Zionists. In February 1919 they succeed in forming the Ahdut HaAvodah (Union of Labor) that Kurtzman says was to become “the cornerstone” of a Jewish state.28

In early 1918 Britain sent a so-called Zionist Commission chaired by Weizmann to Palestine to obtain information prior to develop specific plans to implement the Balfour Declaration. The commission was to act as a liaison between the British military and local Jews, but it remained in Palestine for three and half years and began to function as a quasi-government. Weizmann foundthat “the attitude of far too many of the British officers towardthe Jews could by no stretch of the imagination be called friendly, and this was particularly the case in the district of Jaffa.”29 General Sir Edmund Allenby, commander of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, was cool to the proposition of the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. “Like most of the Englishmen at that time in Palestine the Commander in Chief, though not hostile, was inclined to be skeptical, though not because he feared trouble from the Arabs; it was rather that, in his view, Palestine had no future for the Jews.”30

In early May 1918 Chaim Weizmann met with Kamel Bey al-Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem; Abdul Rauf Bita, the mayor of Jaffa; and Musa Kazem, the former governor of Yemen. Musa Kazem had been given by a British officer a copy of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a bogus anti-Semitic tract that originated in Russia, which suggested that the Jews intended to take over all of Palestine from the Arabs. Weizmann denied that there was such a plan, but it became clear to him that he had not convinced them. Weizmann attempted to purchase the Western Wall from the Muslim religious trust known as the Waqf that administered the site. The military authorities were concerned about the Muslim reaction, and the Wall remained under Muslim ownership.

In June David Hogarth, the head of British intelligence in Cairo, arranged a meeting between Feisal and Weizmann in the desert near Aqaba. T. E. Lawrence also was in attendance. Weizmann later wrote of this meeting: “At this time, it must be remembered, Palestine andTrans-Jordan were one and the same thing, and I stressed the factthat there was a great deal of room in the country if intensive development were applied, and that the lot of the Arabs would be greatly improved through our work there. With all this I found the Emir in full agreement, as Lawrence later confirmed to me by letter.” In retrospect, Weizmann wrote “that the Emir was in earnest when he said that he was eager to see the Jews and Arabs working in harmony during the Peace Conference which was to come,and that in his view the destiny of the two peoples was linked with the Middle East and must depend on the good will of the Great Powers.”31 At the meeting Prince Feisal was contemptuous ofthe Palestinian Arabs, and he told Weizmann that he wanted control of Syria, not Palestine. Later, Feisal signed a document in which he agreed to the establishment of a Jewish majority in Palestine, providing he became the ruler of a large Arab kingdom.

Weizmann also headed the Zionist delegation that went to thePeace Conference at Versailles, where they lobbied for the international ratification of the Balfour Declaration. While Wilson was supportive of the Balfour Declaration, he sent his ownCommission of Inquiry to Palestine. They reported that the

majority of the inhabitants wanted an independent Syria to include both Palestine and Lebanon. However, their report was notpublished until 1922, well after the key decisions were made.32 The result of this lobbying was that when the League of Nations established its mandate system, it gave Britain the mandate for Palestine, including the responsibility to help the Jews establish a national home there. Tom Segev argues that “The mandatory system was designed to give colonialism a cleaner, moremodern look. The Allied powers refrained from dividing up the conqueror’s spoils as in the past; rather they invited themselvesto serve as ‘trustees’ for backward peoples, with the ostensible purpose of preparing them for independence. This new form of colonialism was said to incorporate international law, as well asthe principles of democracy and justice, and respect the wishes of the inhabitants of each country. . . . In reality though, the postwar system was merely a reworking of colonial rule.”33

http://www.mythsandfacts.org/conflict/mandate_for_palestine/1920-mandate_for_palestine.jpg

In January 1919 both Feisal and Weizmann were both in London, when Feisal learned about the Sykes-Picot Agreement. LordRothschild arranged a dinner meeting between the two men, which resulted in a pact signed by both men in which they agreed that an independent Jewish state a Palestine should be created out of

what Feisal considered to be Syria. Feisal couldn’t speak for thePalestinian Arabs who distrusted the Bedouin Arabs. The Arabs were consulted, but only by the Americans. Wilson’s Commission ofInquiry, which Clemencaeu and Lloyd George had declined to support, had gone ahead. . . .They found that an overwhelming majority of the inhabitants wanted Syria to encompass both Palestine and Lebanon; a similar majority also wanted independence. . . . Their report was not published until 1922, long after the damage had been done.”34

In September 1919 the British handed over Syria to the French, but the border between Syria and Palestine was not settled until 1922. The Arabs felt that Transjordan was torn awayfrom Syria, and the Zionists felt it was torn away from Palestine. On March 7, 1920, the Syrian Congress proclaimed Feisal king of Syria, encompassing Lebanon, Palestine, and Transjordan as far as the Euphrates River. However, at the same time Lebanese Christians declared their own independence from Syria. The French rewarded their Christian allies with expanding Lebanon to include not only Mount Lebanon, but also the Bekaa Valley, the ports of Tyre, Sideon, Beirut and Tripoli and south to the border of Palestine. Once the French took over the mandatefor Syria after the San Remo Conference in April 1920, they deposed Feisal. The British allowed him to become the king of Iraq instead. In November Feisal’s brother Abdullah led a small army of 300 into Transjordan and effectively took control of the country by March 1921. In spring 1921 Churchill and T. E. Lawrence visited Jerusalem, and following his visit the British crowned Prince Abdullah King of Transjordan.

At the San Remo Conference in April 1920, the Allied Powers met to agree upon the terms for a peace treaty with the Ottoman Empire. The British awarded themselves a mandate to Palestine andMesopotamia, and the French awarded themselves a mandate to Syria. The implementation of the mandate took another two years. Under the Treaty of Sévres in August 1920 between the Allied Powers and Ottoman separate states were to be established in Syria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia (Iraq, today) “subject to the

rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a Mandatory until such time as they are able to stand alone.” The mandate forPalestine was to be awarded to the British, and

The Mandatory will be responsible for putting intoeffect the declaration originally made on November 2, 1917, by the British Government, and adopted by the other Allied Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, 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.35

Because of the Turkish War of Independence (1919-1923) between the Turkish nationalists and the Allied Powers, the Treaty of Sévres was superseded by the Treaty of Lausanne inJuly 1923. France was awarded the mandate to Syria (including Lebanon) in September 1923.

In March 1920 violence between Jews and Arabs broke out on an isolated Jewish farm in the upper Galilee in an area of uncertain jurisdiction between Britain and France. A group of tenarmed men lead by Yosef Trumpeldor went to defend the Jewish settlers. In the fighting that followed, Trumpeldor was killed, making him a martyr for the Zionists cause. In Jaffa an Arab terrorist group called the Black Hand attacked Jews on the streets. In response, Jabotinsky began to organize a self-defenseforce that eventually became the Hagana. In April the Jewish Passover, the Greek Orthodox Easter, and the Nebi Musa (a Muslim procession to a shrine dedicated to Moses) coincided on the same week. Fighting broke out when some Arabs attacked a crowd of Christians who had gathered at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The British imposed a curfew, but the next day the violence grew worse. Arabs began to attack Jews both on the streets and in their houses. Several of Jabotinsky’s men attempted to enter the Old City to organize the Jews to protect themselves, and a gunfight broke out between Jabotinsky’s men and some gypsies

outside the Old City. Jabotinsky himself was arrested for possessing weapons and disturbing the peace. He was sentenced tofifteen years in prison. Segev writes that “Jabotinsky had becomea symbol of injustice, and his ongoing imprisonment fed anti-British sentiment.”36 Weizmann eventually was able to get Jabotinsky released prison.

http://www.mythsandfacts.org/replyonlineedition/chapter-2.html

In August 1920 Ben-Gurion attended the Poalei Zion World Federation conference in Vienna to prevent the organization from splintering with one wing wanting to join the Communist Third International and cutting ties with the “bourgeois” World ZionistOrganization. “Despite his fervent plea that Zionism, no socialism, must be the party’s central goal, the majority demanded amid pandemonium that the Poalei Zion join the Comintern immediately,” writes Kurzman.37 In December 1921 a General Federation of Hebrew Workers, known as the Histadrut, was founded. Ben-Gurion returned to Palestine near the end of 1921 and he became one of the three secretaries of the Histadrut. At first the Histadrut represented only about one-eighth of the Yishuv (the Jewish community in Palestine), but after the anarchy associated with the Russian Revolution and the Russian civil war in which Jews were attacked, emigration to Palestine increased toabout 35,000 Jews so that the Histadrut ended with nearly 80

percent of the Jewish population and its own armed force, the Hagana. Kruzman states that Ben-Gurion “fiercely fought the localJewish Communists, for they demanded a Jewish-Arab labor federation and a ban on immigration.”38 One group of “Zionist far-leftists” were the followers of Israel Shochat, who had his own armed group named Hashomer. Ben-Gurion insisted that it be merged with Hagana.

But during the May Day celebrations in Jaffa, Communist and moderate members of Poalei Zion clashed with each other and rumors spread that Arabs had been attacked resulting in Arab violence inwhich 50 Jews were killed. The new British High Commissioner, SirHerbert Samuel, who happened to be Jewish, ordered that all Jewish immigration to Palestine be suspended. According to Kurzman, “Sir Herbert, it seemed, wanted to ‘prove’ he was a fairman, despite his Jewish background. Although the previously reigning British military government had found Haj Amin el-Husseini guilty of inciting the 1920 Arab massacre in Jerusalem and forced him to flee the country, the High Commissioner curriedfavor with the Arabs by pardoning him. Suddenly Haj Amin reappeared, carried on the shoulders of a worshipful Arab crowd. And Sir Herbert named Haj Amin the new mufti, or Moslem religiousleader, of Jerusalem.”39

After the war, Lord Curzon replaced Balfour at the British Foreign Office. He was in charge of drafting the British mandate for Palestine. The final mandate was influenced by a White Paper published in 1922 written by Winston Churchill. The White Paper proposed that Trans-Jordan be separated from Palestine, and that Palestine would be considered only the land west of the Jordan River. Weizmann says that “The Churchill White Paper was regardedby us as a serious whittling down of the Balfour Declaration.” Another problem was the wording that “Immigration will not exceedthe economic capacity of the country to absorb new arrivals.” Despite this, Weizmann and his colleagues felt that they had to accept these conditions if they wanted the British mandate. Weizmann was concerned about Jabotinsky’s reaction to this arrangement, but Weizmann writes that “he raised no serious objection, merely remarking that the White Paper, if carried out

honestly and conscientiously, would still afford us a framework for building up a Jewish majority in Palestine, and for the eventual emergence of a Jewish State.”40

The Palestinian mandate was ratified by the League Council meeting in London in July 1922. The Preamble to Mandate for Palestine acknowledged the promise made to the Zionists under the Balfour Declaration for a Jewish “homeland.”

Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have also agreedthat the Mandatory should be responsible for puttinginto effect the declaration originally made on November2nd, 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty,and adopted by the said Powers, in favor of theestablishment in Palestine of a national home for theJewish people, . . .

But it also acknowledged maintaining the civil and religiousrights on non-Jews Palestine.

. . . it being clearly understood that nothing shouldbe done which might prejudice the civil and religiousrights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine,or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews inany other country; and . . .

It went on to recognize the historical connection of theJewish people to Palestine.

Whereas recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country. . .

In Article 2 the Mandate re-states the responsibility of theMandatory (that is, Britain) not only to establish a “Jewishnational home,” but to safeguard the civil and religiousrights of non-Jews.

The Mandatory shall be responsible for placing the country under such political, administrative and

economic conditions as will secure the establishment ofthe Jewish national home, as laid down in the preamble,and the development of self-governing institutions, andalso for safeguarding the civil and religious rights ofall the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion. . .

Article 4 of the Mandate authorized the “Zionist organization” to serve as a Jewish Agency to advise and cooperate in the administration of Palestine in reference Jewish interests.

An appropriate Jewish agency shall be recognised as apublic body for the purpose of advising and co-operating with the Administration of Palestine insuch economic, social and other matters as may affectthe establishment of the Jewish national home and theinterests of the Jewish population in Palestine, and,subject always to the control of the Administrationto assist and take part in the development of thecountry.

The Zionist organization, so long as its organizationand constitution are in the opinion of the Mandatory appropriate, shall be recognised as such agency. It shall take steps in consultation with His Britannic Majesty's Government to secure the cooperation of allJews who are willing to assist in the establishment of the Jewish national home.

And Article 6 charges the administration of Palestine to facilitate Jewish immigration “under suitable conditions” and encourage “enclosed the settlement by Jews on the land.” It is unclear whether that meant the purchase of land from the Arabs.

The Administration of Palestine, while ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced, shall facilitate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions and shall encourage, in cooperation with the Jewish

agency referred to in Article 4, close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes.41

The Arab Palestinians, however, rejected the mandate. The implementation of the mandate took another two years. By then Winston Churchill became the British colonial secretary. At his urging the British mandate was divided in two. Palestine was confined to the area west of Jordan, and the new Arab state of Transjordan was established under the rule of Feisal’s brother Abdullah. Weizmann was not happy with this outcome stating that the area east of the Jordan River had always been considered partof Palestine. Tom Segev argues because the Jews represented only a minority of the population of Palestine that “the problem at the heart of the Zionists claim” was that “the Zionist dream ran counter to the principles of democracy.”42 The Zionists, on the other hand, argued that they represented 15 million Jews worldwide against half a million Arabs in the Middle East.

In conclusion, the early history of the Zionist movement reflects many of the concerns that continue today in the Arab-Israeli Conflict. The British made a promise to establish a “National home” for the Jews in Palestine with the Balfour Declaration during World War One based on the historic claim of the Jews in Diaspora to the Biblical kingdoms of Israel and Judahand the persecution of the Jews in Europe. That promise was fulfilled under the mandate to Palestine that Britain obtained under the League of Nations. While the mandate only promised a Jewish “National home” in Palestine under an advisory Jewish agency, the Zionists had wanted a Jewish state. Furthermore, the mandate required that the Arab residents of Palestine be guaranteed equal civil and political rights. Nevertheless, the Palestinian Arabs never agreed to the mandate.

Britain had also promised its Arab allies during World War One, namely, the Hashemites, to support their struggle for independence from the Ottomans. Under the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement, Britain and France decided to divide the Middle East between themselves, with France obtaining a sphere of influence

in northern Syria (including Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, today) and the British in Mesopotamia (Iraq, today) and Jordan, today. The French agreed to cede the mandate to Palestine to the Britishin return for their support of the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France. When the Hashemite Emir Feisal was removed from power in Syria by the French, the British rewarded him with the Kingdom ofIraq, and they confirmed his brother, Abdullah I, as the ruler ofTransjordan, which comprised the land east of the Jordan River and west of the Euphrates.

Today, there are Israelis who argue correctly that Jordan originally was part of the Palestine Mandate, and therefore included in the Jewish “National home.” They note that Palestine was divided once (separating Transjordan from Palestine) and thenagain (by the partition of the Holy Land between Palestinians andthe Jewish State after World War Two). Thus, they argue, Jordan today should be considered the Palestinian state, especially in light of the fact that now the majority of the population of Jordan is Palestinian. However, the British confirmed the conquest of region by Hashemite Saudi Abdullah I and confirmed him as the King of Transjordan. His grandson, King Hussein, who married an American, made a strategic alliance with the West during the Cold War; and King Hussein’s son, King Abdullah II, the current ruler of Jordan, made a strategic marriage to a Palestinian woman. Thus, the Hashemite family is firmly entrenched as the Jordanian monarchy.

While the argument for the Israeli occupation of the West Bank today is for security reasons, there are historical precedents for a single, state solution to the conflict. There are those in Israeli who want to see a continuation of the status-quo, because they know that throughout the history of Zionism the problem has always been how can Israel claim to be a democratic state, when the majority of the population was or willbecome Arab. The real problem, however, is how can one people claim that to be chosen by God to possess the Promised Land that is holy to three religions.

1 Karen Armstrong, Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996), p. xvi.

2 Cecil Roth, A History of the Jews (New York: Schocken Books, 1961), p. 27.

3 Ibid., p. 135. 4 Ibid., p. 111.

5 Ibid., pp. 112-113.

6 Ibid., History of the Jews, p. 225.

7 Peter B. Golden, Nomads and their Neighbors in the Russian Steppe: Turks, Khazars and Qipchaqs (Burlington, VT and Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2003)Golden, III: 156.

8 Roth, op. cit., p. 306.

9 Ibid., p. 354.

10 Walter Laqueur, A History of Zionism (New York: Shocken Books, 1976), p.xiii.

11 Carl E. Schorske, Fin-De-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture (New York: AlfredA. Knopf, 1980),

12 Laqueur, op. cit., p. 106.

13 Dan Kurzman, Ben-Gurion: Prophet of Fire (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983), p. 68.

14 Ibid., p. 47.

15 Ibid., p. 57.

16 Ibid. , p. 81.

17 Ibid., p. 97.

18 Chaim Weizmann, Trial and Error: the Autobiography (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of American, 1949), I: 44.

19 Ibid., I: 149-150.

20 Jonathan Schneer, The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict (London, Berlin, and New York: Bloomsbury, 2010), p. 309.

21 Ibid., p. 168.

22 David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East (New York: Avon, 1989), pp. 286-287.

23 Schneer, op. cit., p. 335.

24 Fromkin, op. cit., p. 417.

25 Weizmann, op. cit., I: pp. 156-159.

26 Schneer, op. cit., p. 57.

27 Armstrong, op. cit., pp.157, 181, 189, 211-212.

28 Kurzman, op. cit., p. 137.

29 Weizmann, op. cit., I: 221.

30 Ibid., I: 223.

31 Ibid., I: 234, 235.

32 Margaret Macmillan, Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World. (New York: Random House, 2001), p. 406.

33 Ibid., p. 118.

34 Ibid., p. 406.

35 Treaty of Sévres, August 10, 1920, http://www.hri.org/docs/sevres/part13.html

36 Tom Segev, One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate, translated by Haim Watzman (New York: Henry Holt, 1999), p. 143.

37 Kurzman, op. cit., p. 145.

38 Ibid., p. 153.

39 Ibid. p. 148.

40 Weizmann, op. cit., II:291.

41 British Palestine Mandate, July 24, 1922, http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Palestine_Mandate.html

42 Segev, op. cit., p. 119.