“There is a British proverb about the camel and the tent, At first the camel sticks one leg in the tent, and eventually it slips into it. This must be our policy.” Chaim Weizmann

The Tent

Sometime between the Old Testament and the latest ethnic cleansing campaign in Gaza, Israel came into existence. The 1947 United Nations Resolution 181, the Partition Plan of Palestine, was the culmination of an international Zionist political campaign officially launched after the publication of the Theodore Hurzl 1896 pamphlet Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State ). Herzl offered Zionism as the “final solution of the Jewish question.”

The First World Zionist Organization meeting held in Basel, Switzerland (August 1897) adopted the Basel Program. It was the implementation of Zionist goals for establishing a home for the Jewish people in Palestine. Included in the manifesto were two tenants that would have a lasting impact on Palestine, its people, and the Middle East.  

The first of those tenets was the promotion of Jewish settlements in Palestine, accomplished by purchasing land for “Jewish Only” settlers. Aided by the catastrophic Ottoman Land Code of 1858, creating an absentee landlord system of Palestinian peasant-farmer land, and the financial backing of agencies like the Jewish Colonization Association (1891) and the Jewish National Fund (1901) to acquire land in Palestine for “any Jews upon any term” forcibly dispossessed unsuspecting Palestinian peasant farmers of the land. 

The second part of the scheme was obtaining governmental approval to achieve the Zionist purpose. This legitimacy would come to fruition twenty years later when the British hegemonic empire issued the 1917 Balfour Declaration. The British Government announced its support for the establishment of “a National Home for the Jewish people” in Palestine.

Balfour – One Leg

It appears ironic that Prime Minister Arthur Balfour sponsored the anti-semitic Aliens Act of 1905 to prevent East European Jews fleeing pogroms from immigrating to England. Then, a dozen years later, as United Kingdom Foreign Secretary, issued the 1917 Balfour Declaration. Irony has been absorbed into many political decisions throughout history. 

Balfour wrote privately about his decision, ”Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long traditions, in present needs, in future hopes, of far more profound import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land.”

When exploring those profound age-long traditions, present needs, and future hopes, it becomes clear that the Balfour verbiage is “Political language designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. ” (George Orwell)

The reality for the Balfour Declaration on Palestine: 

1. it was strategically important to keep Egypt and the Suez Canal in its sphere of influence (passage to India, British Navy access, transporting of merchant goods)
2. to rally support among Jews in the United States and Russia; 
3. to satisfy the British Zionist Lobbyist community;
4. sympathy towards Jews persecuted in Europe;
5. to keep the Allied governments in the World War.

Despite appearing as a bold declaration by Great Britain in favor of Zionism, it served as a strategic tool to support the Allied war effort. Married to a fear that Germany might preempt the Allies by issuing its own pro-Zionist statement, the Balfour Declaration stole any pro-Zionist move Germany could make.

No one doubted that the Allied Countries stood beside Britain when Balfour issued it. The Jewish Chronicle of London affirmed that the British government had acted “in accord—it is without doubt to be assumed—with the rest of the Allies.” At a Zionist conference in May 1917, Chaim Weizmann (1st President of Israel) announced, “The support of the British government, when given, will be in conjunction and agreement with the Allied powers.”

The French, the Americans, and the Italians were pliable passengers aboard the Zionist train conducted by a coalition of Nahum Sokolow, Chaim Weizmann, and Louis Brandeis. During the spring of 1917, Nahum Sokolow secured the support of France, (Cambon letter) Italy, and even the Catholic pope. Weizmann and Brandeis adroitly secured Great Britain’s and the United States’ support. A Jewish “national home” under British auspices had gained international credit.

A decree issued by the most powerful country of that age, an empire that at that moment was conquering Palestine. (World War l) To announce to the world that they supported the creation of a Jewish state was iconic. The British knew that Palestine was then an overwhelmingly Arab country, populated by 722,143 inhabitants with only 38,754 Jewish. ( 5.3 percent) It did not matter what the inhabitants wanted because the political expedience was of more benefit. Inevitably, the Balfour decision, until this day, has rendered a conflict-riven land.

Across the Pond – The Second Leg

The American mind romanticized the Bible stories and crusader adventure. For the majority of Western Christians and Jews, Zionists or anti-Zionists, newspaper reporters, missionaries, government officials, the United States president, and ordinary American citizens, the history and culture of the Arab Muslims of Palestine were irrelevant. Colonialist and religious ideology combined to triumph over history.

Zionism had also taken hold in the press. In December 1917, a pro-Jewish nation op-ed appeared in the New York Times. It encouraged the U.S. government “to recognize the Jewish nation as one of those oppressed smaller nationalities which must have an opportunity to assert themselves after the war.” Later in that month wrote, “thousands of New York Zionists packed Carnegie Hall” to celebrate ”the British promise to restore Jerusalem and the Holy Land to the Jewish people.”

President Woodrow Wilson had recently reached international stardom. In his January 8, 1918, address to Congress, President Woodrow Wilson proposed a 14-point program for world peace. It would later be a reference at the Paris Peace talks and a precursor to his Noble Peace Prize and the formation of the League of Nations. 

The Fifth point of the 14-Point Plan was “A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty, the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined.”

The Wilson administration, Secretary of State Robert Lansing, his staff, and Colonel House, his personal adviser, were better informed about the demographic realities of Palestine. Both men expressed misgivings about Zionism. By the time of the Paris Peace Conference, both argued against it because “a Jewish homeland implied the rejection of Wilsonian self-determination concerning Arabs.”

One would conclude that Wilson would oppose a colonial settler project in Palestine. However, Wilson was indebted to a cabal of Jewish Zionists that helped him get elected. The prestigious list included financier Jacob H. Schiff, philanthropist Nathan Straus, Bernard Baruch, Samuel Untermeyer, Rabbi Stephen Wise, and Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, a former U.S. ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. (1913-1916) 

Woodrow Wilson – It’s Slipping In

Wilson frequently consulted with attorney and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis. In a letter to Wilson, Brandeis urged expanding boundaries for a new state of Israel. Brandeis persuaded, “Less than this would produce mutilation of the promised homeland. Neither in this country nor in Paris has there been any opposition to the Zionist program? The Balfour Declaration, which you made possible, was a public promise. I venture to suggest that it may be given to you, at this time, to move the statesman of Christian nations to keep this solemn promise to Israel. Your word to Millerand (France) and Lloyd George (Great Britain) at this hour may be decisive.”

Irony again confronts the reality of politics. Wilson bypassed Lansing and the State Department when it came to a decision on the Balfour Declaration, and the president ignored the cautionary advice of Colonel House. The contradiction between Zionist goals and the Wilson rule of self-determination was ignored. Wilson would turn to religious idealism to justify granting the Zionists an exemption from the rule. Wilson saw a European-born movement claiming validity from Old Testament history as a higher priority than twelve centuries of Arab culture and history.

Henry Morgenthau summed up the prevailing attitude in America, “Christians everywhere will rejoice that the Holy Land, so well-known to them through both the Old and New Testaments, has been restored to the civilized world.”

The Camel Is In The Tent

The seduction of Woodrow Wilson was the final conquest needed by the Zionists. Thus, the borders of Israel became a reality. The politicizing and empowering of a statement in an official British Government letter in support of “a National Home for the Jewish people” to the creation of the State of Israel was quite a jump. How the truth becomes mutated is essential to understanding the power that the Zionist Camel holds.

This Zionist Camel formula has proven successful over the years. It is a blend of half-truths mixed with claims of anti-semitism (actual or created) garnished of lobbying, bullying, and financial rewards. Then victimhood is sprinkled over this formula to enable the chosen State of Israel to be levitated to a height above the law. 

Balfour was a victim of the Zionist Camel, followed by Wilson and US citizens. At the 1919 Paris Peace talks, Zionism was a powerful force that established a stranglehold on world history. What followed was a series of tragic setbacks to Palestinian sovereignty. Including the formation of the League of Nations, the British Mandate of Palestine, the United Nations Resolution 181, the 1967 Six-Day War, the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and the 2023 Genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Will it end?

The Camel is well entrenched in the Washington big top. Are there any camel herders capable of removing it? I fear not!