An article by guest correspondent and council insider ‘Frustrated’.
The Balfour Declaration was confirmed in a letter dated November 2nd 1917, from Arthur James Balfour, the British foreign secretary, to Lord Lionel Walter Rothschild, the fabulously wealthy Zionist leader of Britain’s Jewish community.
This declaration, made during the First World War, gave British support for a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine. But Palestine was not part of the British Empire during the First World War. It was part of the Ottoman Empire (Turkish) that was allied to Britain’s enemy, Germany!
The First World War broke out in August 1914, and by late 1916, it had become a bloody stalemate. Worryingly for Britain, its main allies the French, Italian and Russian armies, were on the verge of mutiny after suffering millions of casualties. The allied position worsened during 1917, which resulted in mutinies and mass desertions by millions of French, Russian and Italian troops. Consequently, war weariness was growing, and there were some overtures for a negotiated peace.
Historians acknowledge that the main reason that the British government gave the Balfour Declaration was to secure more support from world Jewry, especially those ‘influential’ Jews within the USA. This support would help Britain to continue to fight Germany and avoid defeat or a negotiated peace settlement.
This historic background gives credence to the claims made by Benjamin H Freedman, a prominent American Jewish insider and defector, who converted to Catholicism. Freedman gave a revealing speech on Zionism to American patriots at the Willard Hotel in Washington D.C. in February 1961. Fortunately, his speech was recorded by American patriots, and you can find it and listen to it on the internet.
Freedman (born in 1890) came from a wealthy New York Jewish family. He was once the principal owner of the Woodbury Soap Company. He was intimately acquainted with Bernard Baruch, Samual Untermeyer, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Jacob Schiff and John F. Kennedy.
Ben Freedman dedicated himself and his considerable fortune to exposing the Zionist tyranny he believed was enslaving the USA, covertly through political, banking and religious channels. Freedman stated that in October 1916, Zionists went to the British war cabinet and said, “Look here. You can win this war. You don’t have to give up. You don’t have to accept the negotiated peace offered to you now by Germany. You can win this war if the United States comes in as your ally.” The Zionists told England, “We will guarantee to bring the United States into the war as your ally, to fight with you on your side, if you promise us Palestine after you win the war.”
In other words, they made this deal: “We will get the United States into this war as your ally. The price you must pay us is Palestine, after you have won the war and defeated Germany, Austria-Hungary and Turkey, (the Islamic Ottoman Empire).”
Shortly afterwards, the USA entered the war in April 1917. Freedman stated that the Zionists got the Balfour Declaration in November 1917 in return for their services and as a receipt for Palestine!
Freedman stressed that it was absolutely absurd that Great Britain, which never had any connection, any interest, or any right in what is known as Palestine, should offer it as coin of the realm to pay the Zionists for bringing the USA into the war on its side against Germany.
Britain did defeat and drive out the Turks from Palestine by the end of the war in November 1918. Consequently, the new League of Nations gave Britain a mandate to administer Palestine in 1920.
The League of Nations mandate for Palestine required Britain to put into effect the Balfour Declaration’s “national home for the Jewish people” alongside the Palestinian Arabs, who composed the vast majority of the regional population in 1920.
However, Britain’s control of Palestine helped millions of Jews (mostly from Europe) to safely emigrate to Palestine until the end of the British mandate and the formation of Israel in May 1948.
Credits:
Top Image: Public Domain.
Lower Image: British Library. Originally published 9 November 1917.
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