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

Palestine and Zionism, 1904-1922 243
sign was the degree to which Churchill deferred to Samuel in the formulation
of the major premises for British policy in Palestine. Even though
the colonial secretary doubted Samuel's judgment and resolve, he allowed
himself to be guided by Samuel, who was in turn guided by his own
subordinates.
HERBERT SAMUEL AND THE DUAL PROMISE
In his nine months as high commissioner, through intercourse with his
staff and the local Arab community, Samuel grew increasingly solicitous
of Arab fears about Jewish immigration and an eventual Jewish majority
in Palestine. As an official in London, his thinking about Palestine had
focused on facilitating Zionism. As an official in Jerusalem, he concentrated
on preserving domestic tranquillity, which meant, in essence, trying
to pacify the Arab population. He did not view it as his purpose to press
on Arab minds the harsh reality that his government's national home
policy intended to encourage Jewish immigration so that the Jews could
transform their homeland into a country where they could enjoy majority
status. On the contrary, he sought to assuage Arab opposition to British
policy by obscuring that policy's goals and by asserting that the Balfour
Declaration was a dual promise to the Jewish people and the Arab people.
Both peoples, he said, must be deemed prime beneficiaries of the mandate,
not just with respect to mandate Palestine as a whole (in which more than
three-quarters of the territory was already reserved exclusively for the
Arabs), but even in western Palestine.
Samuel's reading of the Balfour Declaration was more convenient than
true. As originally promulgated and incorporated in the mandate, the
declaration was for and about "the Jewish people." Neither the language
regarding the "civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities,"
nor the relevant war cabinet debate, nor the San Remo decision,
supports the notion that the declaration was addressing the Jewish people
and the Arab people equally or about the same things. The word "Arab"
appears nowhere in it (and nowhere in the mandate, for that matter). The
declaration was not a promise that Palestine-much less western Palestine
a note that revealed his low estimate of the importance of his own Middle Eastern and
other responsibilities: "You may say anything you like about the Colonial Office that is
sincerely meant; but there is no comparison between these vital foreign matters wh[ich)
affect the whole future of the world and the mere departmental topics with wh[ich) the
Colonial Office is concerned." WSC IV C 1543.