WHAT DID THE BALFOUR DECLARATION MEAN? - Jewish participation in WWI

WHAT DID THE BALFOUR DECLARATION MEAN?

In view of the cool disclaimers which were to come later, it is interesting to note what interpretation was placed on the British Government's Declaration to the Jews at the time. Whatever bearing it might have had on the commendable questions of humaneness and justice, it could hardly be regarded as a wholly benevolent gesture. Balfour himself, handsome, clever and icy, was no mere romantic. He, who had pacified Ireland with guns and was known as `Bloody Balfour' in consequence, could hardly be accused of suddenly developing a philanthropic complex in favor of Jews.

The benefits immediately accruing to the Allied cause need hardly be argued. Certainly, the tremendous number of Jewish soldiers fighting in the Armies of the Western Powers; were fired by this warm earnest of good faith. Nor can one estimate the weight of Jewish influence in neutral countries, which dropped heavily on the Allied side of the scales. Nor the enthusiastic Jewish aid given to the Allenby invasion of Palestine. Nor the stirring effect of the Jewish Legion, fighting to right the oldest wrong in history, on the imaginations of Jewry and the world. Nor the boost it gave the Allied claims when Palestine, the first conquered territory, was trumpeted to all humanity as newly liberated with the help of the Jewish British Brigade. 

Not only was the effect of this superb piece of propaganda felt in all neutral countries but it was immediate in its reaction on the morale of the Central Empires, with their stew of subject races, accelerating the cleavage then taking place between the subject nationalities and their overlords. Worthy of note, too, is the boldness with which the German Zionist Conference in Berlin adopted and cabled a Resolution "greeting with satisfaction the fact that the British Government has recognized in an official declaration the right of the Jewish people to a renewed national existence in Palestine." In fact, after the British announcement, the Central Powers did all they could to win the Zionist movement over to their side. They formulated a rival proposition, involving a chartered company with a form of self-government and the right of free immigration into Palestine; and "by the end of 1917 it was known that the Turks were willing to accept a scheme on those lines." 

Wholeheartedly the great and important body of fundamentalist Christian opinion, hating war for any proclaimed purpose, rose to the bait. Jannaway expresses this profound conviction in his book, Palestine and the World, asserting that Biblical Prophecy was being fulfilled exactly as predicted, thus placing Jehovah squarely on the side of the Western Powers.

"Indeed," says a semi-official British publication, "support of the Zionist ambitions promised much for the Allies . . . That it is in purpose a direct contract with Jewry is beyond question." 

This was acknowledged plainly by General Smuts, member of the War Cabinet, who speaking retrospectively some years later, asserted that "the Declaration was intended to rally the powerful Jewish influence for the Allied cause at the darkest hour of the War”; a statement which David Lloyd George, Winston Churchill and others, emphatically reiterated.

The Declaration was unreservedly endorsed by the other Powers.

On June 4, 1917 the French Government, through its Minister, M. Cambon, formally committed itself to "the renaissance of the Jewish nationality in that Land from which the people of Israel were exiled so many centuries ago." Even in faraway China, Wang, Minister of Foreign Affairs, assured the Zionists that "the Nationalist Government is in full sympathy with the Jewish people in their desire to re-establish the country for themselves." 

In America, echoed by practically every official of public importance,

President Wilson wrote that "the Allied nations, with the fullest concurrence of our own Government and people, are agreed that in all of Palestine shall be laid the foundations of a Jewish Commonwealth."

In gratitude the American Jewish Congress cabled H. M. Government, on November 2, 1917, its desire that Great Britain should be given the trusteeship, "acting on behalf of such League of Nations, as may be formed, to assure the development of Palestine into a Jewish Commonwealth . . ."

In the United States Congress, members expressed general accord with "the British Declaration in favor of a Jewish State in the Holy Land." The minutes of its sessions show that this understanding had not altered by an iota five years later, when the American Congress was induced to put its seal of approval, by resolution, on the selection of Great Britain as the Mandatory for Palestine.

The utterances of the Cabinet ministers who framed the Declaration were no less emphatic. General Smuts asserted that "in generations to come you will see a great Jewish State rising there once more." Declared Lloyd George grandly ". . . Great Britain extended its mighty hand in friendship to the Jewish people to help it to regain its ancient national home and to realize its age-long aspirations." Said Lord Robert Cecil "Our wish is that Arabian countries shall be for Arabs, Armenia shall be for the Armenians and Judea for the Jews." And on another occasion he combined the whole matter in a nutshell, telling the excited Zionists: "We have given you national existence. In your hands lies your national future." Lord Balfour was no less clear. "The destruction of Judea about 1900 years ago," he asserted, "was one of the greatest historical crimes, which the Allies now endeavor to remedy."

British newspapers were as one in their mighty paean of approval.

Without exception they spoke of "the new Jewish State which is to be formed under the suzerainty of a Christian Power.”

Across the water, the American newspapers echoed these remarks in the same expansive detail. A representative editorial of the time explains: "The Zionists are that group of Jews who wish to found a Jewish Republic in Palestine with Jerusalem as the capital.

. . The British cabinet has pronounced in favor of Zionism."

Jewish participation in WWI

Actually the Jewish share in the victory was significant, well justifying in value received the solemn bargain made with world Jewry to reconstitute the Land of Israel as a living factor among the nations.

In the neutral countries the Allied cause, associated everywhere in the Jewish mind with justice and equity, was given invaluable support. Jews fought in the armies of the entire Western Powers. Over a hundred thousand Jewish soldiers were killed in action. In the British Empire itself, out of a total community of 425,000 Jews, 50,000 were in uniform. In true Maccabean spirit they earned more than their share of honors and decorations on the battlefield. One of them was the heroic Sir John Monash, leader of the Australians.

Behind the lines, the Zionist leader Chaim Weitzman was the genius directing the Admiralty Chemical Laboratories. According to Lloyd George, he "absolutely saved the British army at a critical moment" by devising a substitute for exhausted English supplies of acetone, used in making the basic material in gunpowder.

Among others, Sir Alfred Stern invented the tank, which saved the Western Powers from annihilation during the latter part of the fighting. Solomon J. Solomon created the idea of camouflage, allowing harassed Allied shipping to run the U-boat blockade. Everywhere Jewish brains, money, valor and enthusiasm were placed wholeheartedly at the service of the Allies.

In Palestine itself, as a result of their commitment to the Western Powers, Jews were tortured, executed and deported. When the final truce came; fully half of them were dead or had fled abroad.

In 1915 Jewish Palestinian refugees in Egypt had organized the Zion Mule Corps under the leadership of dashing Captain Trumpledor, a one-armed veteran of the Russo-Japanese War. Colonel Patterson, the British officer who led these men in the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign, declared: "I have been in the army a long time, but I never saw anything like the way those Zionists picked up the art of soldiery." For the first time since Roman days, the Zion Mule Corps fought under the proudly floating Jewish ensign, the blue and white Mogen David (Shield of David).

In the meanwhile a brilliant young Russian writer, Vladimir Jabotinsky, had been scurrying around in an attempt to organize a legion of Jewish volunteers from the Diaspora countries to fight directly under the Jewish flag. With rare insight he pointed out that words and promises were soon forgotten and that the most enduring Jewish title to the Holy Land would come from a direct investment of Jewish blood under a Jewish flag.

The influential capitalist Jews were aghast. They put pressure on the British War Office to stop this little impassioned Zionist with the under slung jaw who they believed was jeopardizing their position in the gentile world with his lunatic nonsense.

But the British needed this Jewish regiment for publicity purposes: they had made themselves the champion of the oldest betrayed nationality in existence, impressive to the Poles, Czechs, Armenians, etc., who had been listening to the noble assurances of the Western Powers with their tongues in their cheeks. The War Office consequently overrode the objections of the anti-Zionists and allowed Jabotinsky to form The Jewish Regiment.

As the protest of the scared English Jews became louder, the regiment's name was changed to The Judeans, official sub-title for the 38th Royal Fusiliers. Following hard on its heels followed another Jewish battalion, the 39th Fusiliers.

London was groggy with excitement. The official propagandists did not miss this glamorous opportunity to exploit the sheer romance of the historic occasion. At a giant mass meeting seeing the Jewish warriors off, the Hon. G. N. Barnes, M.P., spoke fulsomely in the name of His Majesty the King. He eulogized the Jewish soldiers as "fellow fighters for freedom," and assured his listeners that "the British Government proclaimed its policy of Zionism because it believes that Zionism is identified with the policy and aims for which good men and women are struggling everywhere.”

In Palestine: The Judeans were joined by Colonel Patterson's seasoned campaigners, the Zion Mule Corps. The Jewish national anthem rang in their ears as they marched, and over their heads waved the Jewish flag.

Wildly enthusiastic, the able-bodied Jews in the conquered territory enlisted. With an appreciation almost reverential the British Peace Handbook No. 6o announced that "the most important event which has taken place . . . since our occupation, has been the recruiting of the Palestine Jews, whatever their national States, into the British Army . . . Practically the whole available Jewish youth of the Colonies . . . came forward for voluntary enlistment in the Jewish Battalions.”

The distinguished service rendered by these Jewish regiments is indelibly written in the records. Said General Bartholomew "For the Turks the end of the War was dependent upon maintenance of the Jordan front against Allenby and on this decisive sector of the front not the Arab Army fought, but the Jewish Legion." It was the Jews, who took the fords of the Jordan, thus opening the way for the passage of the British Army and contributing in great measure to the brilliant victory at Damascus.

This was amply confirmed by General Chaytor, leader of the Australian and New Zealand cavalry and Commander-in-Chief of all troops in the Jordan Valley, who emphasized publicly "the facts of the heroic struggle made by the 38th and 39th Fusilier Battalions," who had marched on to conquer Transjordan and had thus contributed heavily to the victory over the Fourth Turkish Army.

Of fully as great importance was the voluntary intelligence service rendered by the celebrated Nili Society all over the Holy Land. Organized by the scientist Alexander Aronson, its daring exploits were largely instrumental in the success of Allenby's campaign. Far from giving the invaders any help, the Palestine Arabs were, as we shall see, either apathetic or directly hostile.

Spiritedly the Jewish Palestinian volunteers addressed themselves to Colonel Patterson when he landed with his Jewish boys: "We are convinced that Britain's victory is ours and our victory Britain's. This war and Balfour's declaration have made us a sister nation of England. We hope to convince by our fighting that the soul of the Maccabee’s has not dried up and that we know how to countersign Balfour's declaration with our own blood."

They had every reason to feel `convinced.' In April 1917 the British War Department had issued a statement on War Aims in the Near East in which it was proclaimed that "Palestine was to be recognized as the Jewish National Home . . . The Jewish population present and future throughout Palestine is to possess and enjoy full national, political and civic rights. . .

The Suzerain Government shall grant full and free rights of immigration into Palestine to Jews of all countries . . . The Suzerain Government shall grant a charter to a Jewish Company for the colonization and development of Palestine, the Company to have the power to acquire and take over any concessions for works of a public character . . . and the rights of preemption of Crown lands or other lands not held in private or religious ownership, and such other powers and privileges as are usual in Charters or statutes of similar colonizing bodies." These statements were simultaneously reduced by the Allied war propagandists to brief slogans and exploited to the fullest advantage everywhere.

Addressing the first Conference of Jews in the liberated area, Major W. Ormsby-Gore, later as Colonial Secretary to suffer a serious case of amnesia, orated for His Majesty's Government as follows

"Mr. Balfour has made a historic declaration with regard to the Zionists: that he wishes to see created and built up in Palestine a National Home for the Jewish People. What do we understand by this? We mean that those Jews who voluntarily come to live in Palestine, should live in Palestine as Jewish nationalists . . . You are bound together in Palestine by the need of re-building up a Jewish nation in all its various aspects, a national center for Jewry all over the world to look at." 

The marching Jews listened. The great dream which had inspired the Jewish mind for so many long centuries, seemed about to be realized. They believed Britain's word implicitly. But future events in Palestine anti-Semitic British Administration of the Mandate had undermined all the promises written or verbal, thus the British were inciting the Arabs against the Jews in Palestine; by a traitorous British administration of which its treacherous actions reverberates until today as the major cause of the Arab Israeli Conflict which continues to our present time in the twenty first century and beyond.

The 39th Royal Fusiliers arrived in Palestine in the summer of 1918 where they joined British soldiers already fighting north of Jaffa. In September, they participated in the Battle of Megiddo, and it was during that month they were tasked with fording the Jordan River, along with the 38th, in one of the final battles on the Ottoman Front. After that, some Jewish Legionnaires served as guards of enemy combatants until the fighting in Palestine was finally over.

The following individuals from St Louis are reported to have enlisted in the Jewish Legion:

B. Arnoltz, Aaron L. Aronow, Ben Axelbaum,Jake Axelbaum, Hyman Baltzman, Hyman Bamholtz, Aaron J. Bashkow, Morris Aaron Bashkow, Benjamin Berger, Abraham Broun, Ben Cohen, Jacob S Cohen (the first recruit from STL), Julius Corman, Jack Cron, Morris Edelman, Harry Edlin, Edward Eisen, Leon Epstein, Manuel Essman, Henry Feigenbaum, M. Fierson, Louis Friedman, C. H. Galpern, Elias Ginsberg, Jake Gishes, Morris Glassman, Morris Goldberg, Julius Gruenkel, H. Halperin, Isaac Hoffman, Nathan Hurwitz, Meyer Ikin, Morris Jick, Samuel Kashenover, Julius Kerman, S. Kersman/Kerman, B. Klaimon, Jacob Koplar, Woolf Korabelnik, Sidney Kron, Abraham Levin, Abraham Moinester, Isaac Moinester, Morris Pearson, Arthur Rabinovitz, Israel Rosen, Ben Roth, Nehemia Rubin, Abe Schneider, Sam Schuchman, Morris B. Seligsohn, Morris Sheiman, Sam Smolensky, Benjamin J.  Solkoff, Louis Sosna, Charles Spelky, Isaac Turvoitz, Aaron Washkoff, Dave Weiss, Edward Wining, Harry Wolfson, Hyman M. Zuckerman, David Zukerman, and Abraham S. Zubov.

Jewish Defense Organizations: The NILI Spy Ring - Early 1900

NILI was a secret, pro-British spying organization, which operated under Turkish rule in Palestine during World War I, under the leadership of the world-renowned agronomist Aaron Aaronsohn. NILI is an acronym for the Hebrew phrase “Netzah Yisrael Lo Yeshaker,”meaning The Eternal One of Israel will not lie (Samuel I 15:29), which served as its password.

Aaronsohn’s family was part of the early settlement of Zikhron Ya’akov, which was first established in the 1880’s. Aaronsohn had achieved wide acclaim for discovering a weather-resistant form of primitive wheat. With the support from an American-Jewish organization and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Aaron established an experimental agricultural station at Atlit, a small coastal village next to the Carmel Mountains, where he conducted research on dry farming.

With the outbreak of World War I, so too came the deportation of Jewish residents by the Turks, among various other oppressive measures, mounting famine, and the news of Turkish slaughter of masses of Armenians. Aaronsohn and his siblings were prompted to act. They hoped to aid the British to invade Palestine from their base in Egypt, ease the burden of suffering upon the local Jewish population, and inform the world of the Turkish oppression of local Jews, all in the hopes of advancing the Zionist cause for a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

Aaron’s agricultural research provided the cover for him and his co-conspirators to move freely about the country, under the guise of organizing campaigns against locust infestation. The British intitially rebuffed the group’s overtures. It was only in late 1916, when Aaron crossed Turkish lines and the Sinai to reach Cairo, did he convinve the British the value of his Jewish spy ring.

For most of 1917, Aaron remained in Cairo as a liaison, while his sister Sarah, brother Alexander, close friend Avshalom Feinberg, and Joseph Lishansky formed the core of the spy organization. More than 20 others also participated in the group.

The spies communicated by signal lights with a small British frigate anchored off the Atlit coast every two weeks. The spies switched to homing pigeons after the frigate eventually stopped coming, and it was by this method that NILI was able to provide the new regional British commander, General Edmund Allenby, with information about Beersheba and the Negev desert, in preparation for a surprise British attack inland. Details on weather patterns, Turkish fortifications and troop movements, railroads, desert routes, and water-sources location were all among the information the NILI spies were able to pass on to the British.

In September 1917, one of the homing pigeons, bearing a coded message, landed on the house of the Turkish governor in Caesarea. Intense searches and persecutions followed, and by the fall of 1917, the members of NILI organization had all been virtually rounded up.

One by one, the group began to be discovered and captured, some giving the others up under the stress of torture. Avshalom Feinberg had earlier been shot by a Bedouin trying to cross through Sinai to Egypt. One of the group, Na’aman Belkind, was captured by the Turks, along with Joseph Lishansky, and the prisoners were incarcerated in Damascus. Lishansky and Belkind were sentenced to death, and Lishansky was hanged in the public square.

Turkish soldiers also surrounded the moshav Zikhron Ya’akov and arrested numerous people, including Aaronsohn’s sister, Sarah, who committed suicide after four days of torture. She surrendered to spare her aging father sure torture by the Turks.

In October 1917, the British army, with the help of the Australian cavalry, surprised the Turks with their raid on Beersheba, and opened the way into Central Palestine. Jerusalem surrendered in December, and 400 years of Ottoman rule came to an end. The conquest of Beersheba would have been almost impossible without the massive amount of information provided by the NILI spies.

Aaron, NILI’s founder and leader, remained in Cairo. He survived the war and became active in the campaign to increase British and Zionist relations after the Balfour Declaration was written in November 1917. He died in a plane crash in May 1919, on his way from London to the Paris Peace Conference.

Years later, when Israel conquered the Sinai during the Six Day War, an elderly Bedouin led an IDF officer to a spot known locally as Kabir Yehudi (the Jew’s grave), where one lone date palm grew. There the remains of Avshalom Feinberg were exhumed and identified; the tree had evidently sprouted from a date seed that was in his pocket. Nearly 50 years after he was shot in the Sinai, Feinberg’s bones were laid to rest in the military cemetery on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.

A museum dedicated to NILI was recently opened in the old center of Zikhron Ya’akov. On display are hundreds of photos, original letters, explanations and dioramas which explain the story of the Jewish spy ring during World War I.

http://www.nili-museum.org.il/nili-centenary/

Nili Centenary

Nili: acronym for "Netzach Israel Lo Yishaker" – The Eternity of Israel will not deceive (Samuel I, 15:29 Dreamers and warriors, bearers of the rebellion against the Ottoman Empire.

The underground Nili network was established in 1915 and operated in Eretz Israel during WWI. Its objectives were:

To assist the British effort to conquer Eretz Israel by gathering information.

To support the Jewish Yishuv in Eretz Israel in a time of famine and disease.

To draw world attention to what was happening in Eretz Israel.

To fulfill the dream of establishing a Jewish State in Eretz Israel.

Nili was founded and led by agronomist Aaron Aaronsohn from Zikhron Ya'akov, joined by his sister Sarah and brother Alexander, as well as Avshalom Feinberg from Hadera, brothers Na'aman and Eitan Belkind from Rishon LeZion, Yosef Lishansky from Metula and dozens of others.

The organization operated from Athlit, where Aaron's Agricultural Experiment Station was located. British forces sailed regularly between Egypt and Athlit – the British warship Managam frequently came ashore at Athlit to collect the information gathered by Nili members. Information was also passed on via homing pigeon.

In the spring of 1917 rumors about the espionage organization circulated around the Yishuv. A number of events led to the exposure of the organization in September 1917: a British coin was found in the market in Ramleh, a homing pigeon failed to complete its mission and landed in the governor's yard in Caesarea and Na'aman Belkind was arrested by Turkish authorities.

Following these events, the Turks began a campaign of threats and terror against the Jewish Yishuv in order to apprehend Nili members. Many were in fact caught and tortured. Sarah Aaronsohn committed suicide after undergoing severe torture. Na'aman Belkind and Yosef Lishansky were executed in Damascus.

The bravery and heroism of the men and women of Nili helped the British enter Eretz Israel and end the Ottoman rule.

Beit Aaronsohn Museum Nili.