Churchill, Palestine and Zionism, 1904-1922 - Douglas J. Feith

Palestine and Zionism, 1904-1922 241
Palestine. 85 Palestine. Meinertzhagen, who did not accompany Churchill to Cairo
and Jerusalem and did not begin service as Middle East department military
adviser until May, commented acidly when he learned what was done
with Transjordan. He recorded in his diary that he "exploded" on hearing
that Churchill had separated Transjordan from western Palestine:
85 Meinertzhagen, who did not accompany Churchill to Cairo
and Jerusalem and did not begin service as Middle East department military
adviser until May, commented acidly when he learned what was done
with Transjordan. He recorded in his diary that he "exploded" on hearing
that Churchill had separated Transjordan from western Palestine:
Abdullah was placated at the expense of the Jewish National Home .... Lawrence
was of course with Churchill and influenced him .... This reduces the Jewish
National Home to one-third of Biblical Palestine. The Colonial Office and the
Palestine Administration have now declared that the articles of the mandate
relating to the Jewish Home are not applicable to Transjordan .... This discovery
was not made until it became necessary to appease an Arab Emir ....
I told [Churchill] it was grossly unfair to the Jews, that it was yet another
promise broken and that it was a most dishonest act, that the Balfour Declaration
was being torn up by degrees and that the official policy of H. M. G. to establish
a Home for the Jews in Biblical Palestine was being sabotaged .... Churchill
listened and said he saw the force of my argument and would consider the
question. 86 question. 86
While still in Jerusalem, Churchill met with a delegation from the Arab
Palestine Congress, which presented a memorandum that condemned the
"unnatural partitioning" of Syria and Palestine, which it said were a single
country. It rejected the Balfour Declaration, stating that the Arabs "resent
and fight" against "transforming Palestine into a home for the Jews," who
lack national rights for they have "no separate political or lingual existence."
Attributing to the Jews "pernicious motives ... towards the Powers
that be and towards civilisation," the memorandum says that "everyone"
should read The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It asks: "If Russia and
Poland, with their spacious countries, were unable to tolerate [the Jews],
how could Europe expect Palestine to welcome them?,,87
Churchill replied bluntly to the call for repudiating the Balfour Declaration
and ending Jewish immigration: "It is not in my power to do so,
nor, if it were in my power, would it be my wish." The declaration was
"made while the war was still in progress, while victory and defeat hung
85 As it happened, Abdullah remained longer than planned-viz., until he was assassinated
in 1951. Meanwhile, he became king of an independent Transjordan in 1946. The kingdom's
name was changed from Transjordan, which means "across the Jordan," to plain
Jordan after the 1948-49 war against Israel, in which Abdullah's forces conquered the
region west of the Jordan River that became known as the kingdom's "West Bank."
Before that conquest, the West Bank-as attested by General Allenby's campaign
maps, the 1947 United Nations partition plan, and innumerable history and geography
books by Arabs, Jews, and others-had universally been called "Judea and Samaria."
86 Meinertzhagen, Middle East Diary, 99-100 (June 21, 1921, entry).
87 Klieman, Foundations, 259-67 [Appendix B].