Palestine: The Reality: The Inside Story of the Balfour Declaration

by J.M.N. Jeffries

Overview

A comprehensive history and analysis of the Balfour Declaration of 1917, published in the run up to its 100th anniversary. First published by Longman Green, London, this book had a short life; the entire stock and the publisher's premises were destroyed by the german blitz in 1941. The Balfour Declaration of 1917 is a document that profoundly affected the Middle East. Palestine: The Reality is an expertly researched inside story of the Declaration. It is also a vivid and personal account in which J.M.N. Jeffries exposes the real authors and progenitors of the Balfour Declaration, along with their personal stories, motives, conspiracies, and political aims. The author also details the other international players who were involved in the creation of the “Balfour” document, and offers a clearsighted perspective on the broken agreements with Britain’s Arab allies that enabled the Declaration and dispossessed the Palestinian Arabs of their homeland.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781566560245
Publisher:	Interlink Publishing Group, Incorporated
Publication date:	04/26/2017
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	800
Sales rank:	459,382
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.70(d)

About the Author

Joseph Mary Nagle Jeffries (1880-1960) was a war, foreign, and political correspondent for The Daily Mail in London from 1914 until the 1930s. He covered the fighting in the First World War, the struggles in Palestine, and the “Troubles” in Ireland.

Table of Contents

Preface Andy Simons xvii

New Introduction Ghada Karmi xxi

Author's introduction, with maps from the 1939 edition xxix

1 Lord Northcliffe 1

2 The Great Arab race

The possession of Palestine necessary for its expansion 17

3 The Zionist movement an intrusion upon a previous Arab movement

The modern Arab renaissance

The Arab preparations to overthrow Turkish rule in Syria and to re

Establish the old Arab State 23

4 The Jews in Palestine

Misuse of the term "exile"

Did they survive in Palestine?

The two Zionisms

Early Zionists

Herzl and political Zionism

Refusal to be aware of the Arabs 31

5 The Powers and the Arab National Movement

The Headship of the Movement shifts to Mecca

The Shereef Hussein

The Emir Abdullah's visit to Kitchener

War between Britain and Turkey

British negotiations for Arab support begin 47

6 The Treaty between Great Britain and the Arabs

Arab independence to be recognized and supported within frontiers including Palestine 67

7 The Progress of Zionism

Weizmann, Balfour, Sir Herbert Samuel appear

Zionist approaches to Asquith, Lloyd George and Grey

Another Manchester School

The first false step

The Grey Memorandum 93

8 Preparations for the Arab revolt

How the Arabs died in Syria

Feisal and Djemaal

The revolt starts

The Sykes

Picot treaty

The Zionist "October

Programme"

Political Zionism made a "complex problem"

Political Zionism made "a small nation." 117

9 Political Zionism's first "official" steps in London

Brandeis and Balfour

Lawrence and British pledges

Jewry versus Zionism

First arrangements for the Mandate

Jewish opposition in the U.S. to Zionism

France's recognition 139

10 How the "Balfour Declaration" was written

Its real authors

Tactics of Justice Brandeis

The "Brandeis regime"

Jewish opposition in England

Publication of the Declaration 163

11 Analysis of the Balfour Declaration

Its sham character and deceptive phraseology 179

12 Illegitimacy of the Declaration

Motives for issuing the Declaration

The Declaration as payment for services rendered 195

13 First consequences of the Balfour Declaration

Mr. Ormsby

Gore appears on the scene

Allenby's campaign

The Arabs' exact part in it

Allenby leaves the Balfour Declaration unpublished in Palestine

The reasons for this 211

14 The Zionist Commission in Palestine

Close of the War

The Arabs' military achievement

The Joint Anglo

French Proclamation promising Independence to the Arab populations 229

15 Proposals for making Palestine "a Jewish country" approved by Balfour

Zionist preparation for the Peace Conference

The siege and investment of Feisal

The "Treaty of Friendship"

The "Frankfurter letter." 251

16 The Peace Conference

The Zionist role there

Feisal's vain speech

Weizmann enounces Zionist demands

"Palestine to be as Jewish as England is English"

The private meeting of the "Big Four" at Mr. Lloyd George's flat

Mr. Lloyd George and the Hussein

McMahon treaty

President Wilson insists on sending a commission to find the desires of the Syrians 269

17 The first Arab parliament

Feisal summons the Syrian Congress

The "Damascus Programme" The Crane

King Commission's Report 293

18 Importance of the Damascus Programme and Crane

King Report

The Crane

King Report suppressed

Syria divided between France and Britain

Another letter of Feisal's

The Zionist Commission takes governmental attributes to itself

Resentment and vain appeals to London of the Army Administration 311

19 The Emir Feisal proclaimed King of Syria

He asks for recognition of Syrian independence by the Allies and cites the McMahon

Hussein pact

Fall of the Kingdom of Syria

Arabs and Jews clash in Palestine

The Chief Administrator of Palestine tells Mr. Lloyd George some truths about the country 333

20 The San Remo Conference

The covert assumption of the Mandate for Palestine by the Prime Minister

Mandatory Government illicit as no Mandate yet possible

Governmental secrecy, and its reasons

Dr. Weizmann blurts out the aims of the Premature Mandate 351

21 Mr. Lloyd George violates the Covenant of the League of Nations

The Chief Administrator of Palestine recommends the suppression of the Zionist Commission

Intervention of the United States against monopolies in Palestine

Parliament uninformed and unconsulted upon the Mandate

End of the Military Administration in Palestine

The Army judges political Zionism 369

22 The first High Commission of Palestine

Sir Herbert Samuel

The Prime Minister's equivocation

The Treaty of Sèvres

The Covenant again violated

The farcical frontier of Palestine

President Wilson's "bombshell" letter 387

23 The "Civil Government" of Palestine set up in 1920 an unlawful government

Violation by the Lloyd George Cabinet of Great Britain's pledges at The Hague

Proofs of the illegitimacy of the Palestine Government 405

24 Ersatz Israel 427

25 The granting of the Rutenberg Concessions

Suffocation of other applicants by the Government

The real aim of Zionist Concessions

The Arabs given no say in the matter 449

26 Governmental apologia for the grant of the Rutenberg Concessions A plot against the Arabs Balfour's negotiations in the United States reveal this

His suppressed paragraphs

He cajoles the Secretary of State in Washington 463

27 The Perfidy of the Government 477

28 Other endeavours to justify the Government's broken faith to the Arabs

Their refutation from official sources

Great Britain absolutely pledged to establish Arab government in Palestine 503

29 The achievement of the Arab delegates in 1921

2-Subterfuges of the "White Paper"

Lord Northcliffe in Palestine

The House of Lords censures the Cabinet's infidelity

The Treaty of Lausanne

The Mandate comes into force at last 517

30 The drafting of the Covenant

The shifts of General Smuts

Article 22 drafted so as to evade its own ends

The fate of the Vesnitch amendment 527

31 The manoeuvre of "fidelity to the Mandate"

The Mandate really written by Zionists in collaboration with the Government

The League of Nations deliberately prevented from fixing its terms 549

32 The text of the Mandate

Its important Articles all of Zionist origin 573

33 The stage-fight between Government and Zionists

The theory of two primary "obligations"

The Council of the League plays traitor The responsibility of the League in the Palestine affair 593

34 The years from before 1923 are those which matter in the Palestine Question

Irrelevance and insincerity of the argument that Zionism means prosperity

Abdication of King Hussein

The Mavrommatis case

The Government impeached at last and found guilty 605

35 Balfour's journey to Syria

More granting of Concessions

The outbreak of 1929

Another Commission

The Labour Party and Palestine 627

36 The Shaw Commission

Its Report a blow for the Government

Endeavours to destroy the effect of the Report

Sir John Hope Simpson sent to Palestine

His Report no better for the Government

Lord Passfield's White Paper 637

37 The White Paper of 1930

Mr. Ramsay MacDonald surrenders to Dr. Weizmann

The "Black Letter"

The Report of Mr. French

The growing peril of the Arab peasant being dispossessed for ever 659

38 Increase of Zionist immigration

The pretext of refuge from the German persecution

How the Legislative Council was rejected

The Great Strike of 1936

The Arab Officials' Memorial

Resignation of the Chief Justice

The Peel Commission's Report and project of Partition

Private arrangements of Mr. Ormsby

Gore and Dr. Weizmann 681

39 League "neutrality" in the Palestine question

The Palestine Government dissolves the Arab Higher Committee and exiles leaders

The Mufti escapes to the Lebanon

The Technical Commission leaves for Palestine

Mr. Malcolm MacDonald succeeds Mr. Ormsby-Gore- Foreign interference in Palestine

The Galilee-Sanjak-of-Alexandria campaign-Awaiting the Woodhead Report 705

40 Valuelessness of any solutions of the Palestine Question not granting independence to the Arabs

Impossibility and wrongfulness of any turning of Palestine into a Colony or Dominion

The question of our strategic needs in and round Palestine

The only settlement-The honour of Great Britain at stake 727

Index 749

Editorial Reviews

06/12/2017
British journalist Jeffries (1880–1960) combines the skills of an investigative reporter, a scholar’s assiduity in pursuing available documents, and an engaging writing style in this long-unavailable 1939 exposé of the 1917 Balfour Declaration, which underwrote a “national home” for the Jewish people in Palestine. Jeffries covered WWI in the Middle East and emerged as a committed anti-Zionist. For the next quarter century he focused on the Balfour Declaration, drawing three principal conclusions: First, its real authors and supporters were Jewish, British, and international Zionists who shaped the document and lobbied for it in London and at Versailles (Jeffries unflatteringly portrays both the Jewish Zionists and their gentile counterparts). Second, Britain lied and broke promises to both its Arab and French allies on every aspect of the Palestine question. Third, Britain callously dismissed Palestinian Arabs’ rights and welfare. Jeffries’s work received significant prepublication support, but his publisher’s warehouse and most of the existing copies were destroyed during the 1941 German blitz. The centennial of the Balfour Declaration occasioned this new edition, and though Jeffries’s narrow focus underplays Britain’s desperate wartime situation in 1917, the book will be welcomed by critics of Britain and Israel. Maps & illus. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

"Who would think that a 748-page book on the diplomatic history of the Balfour Declaration and its aftermath could be a page-turner, but this book definitely is. It's a truly remarkable achievement and a fascinating read in many ways ' Regarding the significance of the book for us, I think it's important for people to read an account by an honest observer of the formative events early on, someone who hasn't yet had time to grow accustomed to the reality of the Jewish State in Palestine. I keep reading in lots of liberal venues about how the two peoples each have their narrative and claims and a way forward must be found that takes legitimate account of both sides. What Jeffries shows so dramatically is that there may be two narratives, but only one of them, the Palestinian one, has much connection to reality. As we see from his vantage point so clearly, the land of Palestine was stolen from its people by a major world power and given to another group of people who had no claim to it whatsoever. That last quote from Jeffries near the end of the book says it all. Of course there is now a Jewish community in Palestine that cannot be ignored or just sent back to where they came from, so one cannot undo the original sin. But so long as we don't properly acknowledge that original sin — and this is what Jeffries's book helps us do so well — I don't see that genuine peace with justice is possible.

Professor Joseph Levine