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A Land of Milk and Honey?
‘a land flowing with milk and honey’ –Exodus 3:8 ‘By chance this land became holy’ – Mahmoud Darwish,Mural
Memories and identities
In 2017, the world will mark the centenary of the infamous Balfour Declaration. This was the assurance given to Lord Rothschild by the British Foreign Secretary and Christian Zionist, Arthur James Balfour that the British government viewed
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 thatnothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious right of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.1 (My italics)
Lord Rothschild was a leading British Jew able to pass this message to the Zionist leadership then pressing for a Jewish state in Palestine once the war was ended and Ottoman rule destroyed. The Balfour Declaration was for the Zionist movement of Herzl and Weizmann and their supporters in Europe and the USA a major political and diplomatic achievement. In the chaos of war it prised open the possibility of the Jewish state in Palestine they dreamed of.
This moment in the history of Zionism and of what became the state of Israel reminds us today that the tormented history of the Middle East has always been part of the wider international order with its conflicts of interests, deceptions and carefully engineered political alliances that have been and remain to this day in constant flux.
A century later, this declaration is a live symbol in the political memories of both Jews and Arabs. Of course, it is remembered for different reasons. For Jews, it is a turning point opening a new future. For Arabs it is a sign of betrayal, arrogance and hypocrisy on the part of Britain’s leaders. The narrative of the memory evokes both the hopes and resentments of two peoples that remain locked in an unresolved conflict about the future of the land then known as Palestine.
The logic behind the declaration was embedded in an imperialist world-view. Britain needed a strong presence in the Middle East to counter French and Russian ambitions in the region and to protect the Suez Canal route to India. There was also a belief among British statesmen that a strong Jewish presence in the Holy Land would accelerate its development and overcome the traditionalism of its Arab population. The exploitation of oil fields in Iraq and the prospects of a future air bridge to India all combined to make a strong case for Jewish settlement in Palestine as something that was in line with imperial interests.
There were immediate pressures at work too. Particularly significant was the need t
