On this day in 1917, 2nd November, the Balfour Declaration was signed.
It marked an intent for colonial occupation by the British, which later became an occupation supported and sustained by the United States.
It was an evil act where a section of the European population were promised the land inhabited by the Palestinians for centuries, by a power that had no right to make such a promise.
The traitor, Sherif Hussain of Hijaz, believed the British had promised Palestine to him. However, the British had a PhD in deception insofar as they promised the same land to themselves, had also agreed to share it with the French as an international zone - and were negotiating with the Ottomans about a truce at the time, because the Americans had not yet joined the war.
1905 Balfour, as Prime Minister, had passed the anti-Semitic Alien Act - the ‘stop the boats policy’ of its day - halting the migration of Jews persecuted in Eastern Europe seeking refuge in the UK.
https://www.ourmigrationstory.org.uk/oms/jewish-immigration-and-the-aliens-act-1905#&gid=1&pid=1
The only Jewish member of the Cabinet, Sir Edwin Montagu, opposed the Balfour declaration. He saw it as a gift to anti-Semites who would tell Englishmen like him to move ‘back home’ to Palestine. This further suggests that the promise to the Zionist Jews of that time was not well-intended to support Jewish people. It also shows that Zionism was not the dominant political view of world Jewry in the early 20th Century.
https://balfourproject.org/edwin-montagu-and-zionism-1917/
Abdul Wahid has been active in Muslim affairs in the UK for over 25 years. He has been published on the websites of Foreign Policy, Open Democracy, the Times Higher Educational Supplement, and Prospect Magazine. You can follow him on X/Twitter @AbdulWahid_X.
I recently read Field Marshal Wavell’s biography of General Allenby. Wavell was part of Allenby’s entrance into Jerusalem and knew Allenby very well. Wavell said that Allenby refused to publish the Balfour declaration in Palestine. I think this is because although Allenby was an excellent general and followed orders he had his own mind and privately disagreed with giving the mandate to the Zionists for free. Lord Curzon at the War Cabinet also outright refused to agree to the Balfour declaration. (This reminds me to post this document from the public records office) so there is a sound British anti Zionist position from the top of the military and political establishment, a shame that such men do not exist anymore in Britain. The example of Allenby, Wavell and Curzon are an indictment on the failure of the servile political class. As a historian, it is curious that all three men, despite their capacities, were unable to succeed in winning their own positions over the inexorable forces against them - despite their acumen and education.
In a letter to Freya Stark in 1947 Wavell was appalled by the Nakba and said “if ever a way to hell was paved with good intentions it was this one.” And said the Arabs wouldn’t win because they would never unite, and the Jews would because they had the “cold hearted ruthlessness” and ability to spin propaganda. In 2025 the Zionist propaganda has finally lost all grip. But how many more dead Muslims will it take before a Muslim leader with taqwa acts to defend them?
Concise and riveting. Jazaakumullahu Khairan.
Knowing history is essential to understanding the present.