The Balfour Declaration Influence on Formation of Israel

Few documents in Middle Eastern history have had as consequential and controversial an influence as the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which has been at the center of the Arab-Israeli conflict over the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The Balfour Declaration   The Balfour Declaration was a 67-word statement contained within a brief letter attributed to Lord Arthur Balfour, the British foreign secretary, dated November 2, 1917.  Balfour addressed the letter to Lionel Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild, a British banker, zoologist and Zionist activist who, along with Zionists Chaim Weizmann and Nahum Sokolow, helped draft the declaration much as lobbyists today draft bills for legislators to submit. The declaration was in line with European Zionist leaders hopes and designs for a homeland in Palestine, which they believed would bring about intense immigration of Jews around the world to Palestine. The statement read as follows: His Majestys 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. It was 31 years after this letter, whether willed by the British government or not, that the state of Israel was founded in 1948. Liberal Britain’s Sympathy for Zionism Balfour was part of the liberal government of Prime Minister David Lloyd George. British liberal public opinion believed that Jews had suffered historical injustices, that the West was to blame and the West had a responsibility to enable a Jewish homeland. The push for a Jewish homeland was aided, in Britain and elsewhere, by fundamentalist Christians who encouraged the emigration of Jews as one way to accomplish two goals: depopulate Europe of Jews and fulfill Biblical prophecy. Fundamentalist Christians believe that the return of Christ must be preceded by a Jewish kingdom in the Holy Land). The Declaration’s Controversies The declaration was controversial from the start, and chiefly due to its own imprecise and contradictory wording. The imprecision and contradictions were deliberate—an indication that Lloyd George did not want to be on the hook for the fate of Arabs and Jews in Palestine. The Declaration did not refer to Palestine as the site of the Jewish homeland, but that of a Jewish homeland. That left Britains commitment to an independent Jewish nation very much open to question. That opening was exploited by subsequent interpreters of the declaration, who claimed that it was never intended as an endorsement of a uniquely Jewish state. Rather, that Jews would establish a homeland in Palestine alongside Palestinians and other Arabs established there for almost two millennia. The second part of the declaration—that â€Å"nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities†Ã¢â‚¬â€could be and has been read by Arabs as an endorsement of Arab autonomy and rights, an endorsement as valid as that proffered on behalf of Jews. Britain would, in fact, exercise its League of Nations mandate over Palestine to protect Arab rights, at times at the expense of Jewish rights. Britain’s role has never ceased to be fundamentally contradictory. Demographics in Palestine Before and After Balfour At the time of the declaration in 1917, Palestinians—which were the â€Å"non-Jewish communities in Palestine†Ã¢â‚¬â€constituted 90 percent of the population there. Jews numbered about 50,000. By 1947, on the eve of Israel’s declaration of independence, Jews numbered 600,000. By then Jews were developing extensive quasi-governmental institutions while provoking increasing resistance from Palestinians. Palestinians staged small uprisings in 1920, 1921, 1929 and 1933, and a major uprising, called the Palestine Arab Revolt, from 1936 to 1939. They were all quashed by a combination of British and, beginning in the 1930s, Jewish forces.

Essay on Out of the Silence - 1445 Words

The slave narrative genre is an important part of American history. These stories are not only portraits of individual history, but also of American history. By reading the stories of the past we can better determine the path of the future. The personal stories of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs are two excellent examples of the slave narrative genre in American literature. To be sure, bondage and oppression had a lasting and profound effect on both genders; however, men and women experienced slavery in different ways. By comparing and contrasting â€Å"Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave† and â€Å"Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl,† we gain very different insights into the truth about slavery from the vantage†¦show more content†¦His target audience was the upper and middle class men of American society, the powerful politicians in control of American law. With that in mind, Frederick Douglass used writing tactics that res emble argumentative essays or speeches to show his audience the effects of slavery on all people who were slaves. Mr. Douglass relied mostly on the logos appeal with ethos as support. The following passage is a good example of this. . . . nevertheless plain that a very different-looking class of people are springing up at the south, and are now held in slavery, from those originally brought to this country from Africa: and if their increase will do no other good, it will do away the force of the argument, that God cursed Ham, and therefore American slavery is right. . . for thousands are ushered into the world, annually, who, like myself, owe their existence to white fathers, and those fathers most frequently their own masters (Douglass 877). In this manner, Douglass used the logos appeal to attack the justifications of American slavery. Equally important, he used the ethos appeal to call attention to the character of the white men who rape slave women and sell their own children. Frederick Douglass used that strategy because he knew that the lawmakers were men who respected logic. In effect, Douglass used logic to gently force those lawmakers to reexamine their own ethicsShow MoreRelatedSurrendering to the Menacing Darkness of Silence, Fear and Inaction in Manjula Padmanabhan’s Lights Out2901 Words   |  12 Pages consumption of violence and the associated fear, deliberately and subtly illustrated by the elements of silence and darkness in Manjula Padmanabhan’s play Lights Out. Violence in India is multifaceted: not merely physical, it is more often mental and emotional, subtle and indirect, most often insidious and difficult to recognize. Lights Out is based on a true incident, an eye-witness account. The incident took place in Santa Cruz, Bombay, 1982, Read More The Virtue Of Silence Essay990 Words   |  4 Pages THE VIRTUE OF SILENCE nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Of all the virtues that most men and women disregard, it is silence. People go about in their everyday lives not even noticing the beauty of ones quot;inner silence.quot; Try an experiment: Close your eyes. Tune out the sounds from everything thats surrounding you, and focus on what is going on inside you. Take a deep breath and just listen. How many inner voices did you hear? Most people do not even realize the amount of noise that is carriedRead MoreSilence By William Shakespeare s Krapp s Last Tape Essay1591 Words   |  7 Pages Silence as a Character in Krapp’s Last Tape Krapp, a cantankerous old man attempting to relive his â€Å"best years† by listening to a tape he recorded on his thirty-ninth birthday in Beckett’s â€Å"Krapp’s Last Tape†, constantly pauses and allows silence to overwhelm him and his thoughts. 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The silence in the book Night can be seen through many examples of the imagery used in the novel. â€Å"Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live.† Just like Wiesel said, the night that was inside of everyone, was inside of them forever. They had given up everything and it was all gone in the silence of this horrific experience. Out of everything the JewsRead MoreAnalysis Of Chaim Potok s The Chosen, Verbal Communication, Or The Lack Thereof1429 Words   |  6 Pagesmain theme. The lack of communication, silence, in The Chosen is used by Potok not only to show the suffering of his characters but also to symbolize the struggles of the Jewish people. Potok uses silence prominently in The Chosen to show isolation. Both of the protagonists in the book experience an isolating silence; for example, the silence imposed upon Danny is a main component of the novel’s plot. Danny’s pain and isolation is caused by his father’s silence toward him. Reb Saunders, Danny’s fatherRead MoreThe Sound of Silence Discussion Essays1237 Words   |  5 Pagesdefines silence, as being an absence of a sound or noise, but for John Cage this could not be farther from the truth. Most people would agree with the dictionary definition that no noise is silence but Cage believed that silence is sound. Cage was not only a great composer but is known for his odd perspective and philosophy on silence and sound. His unique outlook differs from many composers, he believed to let â€Å"sounds be themselves† and to not manipulate them (â€Å"John Cage- Music, Sound and Silence). As

An Act of Creation free essay sample

Soft light lines. Curving and dipping, they fill the paper, imitating the picture. It is a good beginning to what will hopefully be an accurate portrayal;an artist’s favorite challenge is to make nature’s flaws look beautiful. Small overlapping circles. Again and again, my pencil retraces the pattern,striving for perfection. Though there will be flaws, when looked at from adistance, the piece will have a smooth first layer of shading. Darker. The lines slip away as the shading gets heavier, and the piece begins to come to life. Slowly, the darkest areas begin to pull back as the lighter ones pop out. But it is nowhere near finished. How to create the allusion of a soft bumpy texture with only hard lead? Patience, shading, and imagination. And a little bit of lying. Artistic license allows me to do that. Carefully, I layer the different leads, and the piece begins to look three dimensional. We will write a custom essay sample on An Act of Creation or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Now, how to make an object look alive on unchanging paper? A meticulous mark here, a dark line here, a light spot here.And the long stringy texture? Alternating between hard and soft strokes, long and short, straight and curved. A few lines here, a couple more overlapping circles, and I step back. It is finished. My eyes gaze back at me, my curls fall around my face, my mouth frownsthoughtfully, as if studying me right back. I smile at her, remembering all theneck cramps, the smudges, the moments I wanted to rip and tear until only smallpieces remained of what could only be a hopeless attempt. But I would never have believed that the product of my countless long hours could look so refined. So artistic. So much like me.