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Show - 3 - (2) Under these circumstances, an offer of "independence" to Jews in Palestine was unthinkable. Nor was such an offer made. What was made was a promise to facilitate the immigration of Jews to Palestine for the purpose of building a "national home"; and even this limited offer was made conditional upon safeguarding the rights of the non-Jewish predominant majority of the population. The Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917, is explicit as far as this point is concerned. The full text of this Declaration follows: 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 achievement of this object, 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. That this Declaration did not amount to an "offer" of "independence" to the Jews in Palestine is clear from the text itself. It is equally clear from the manner in which Zionist leaders understood it at the time. When a Zionist delegation appeared at the Paris Peace Conference in February, 1919, and was asked by the U.S. Secretary of State, Mr. Lansing, what it understood by the phrase, "a Jewish national home," its spokesman, Dr. Chaim Weizmann, replied that - The Zionist organization did not want an autonomous Jewish Government, but merely to establish in Palestine, under a mandatory Power, an administration, not necessarily Jewish, which would render it possible to send into Palestine 70 to 00,000 Jews annually.3 Weizmann and other Zionist leaders recognized and understood the facts at hand: namely, that there was at that time no viable Jewish community in Palestine; and a that, in the absence of such/community, to demand independence for the Jews in Palestine was futile, and to offer such independence was meaningless. Hence the demand, and the offer, were confined to opportunities for immigration, not independence. This reasoning was best expressed in a speech delivered by Weizmann before an |
