The Christian Zion Movement and the Balfour Declaration

During World War I, British troops at war with the Ottoman Empire, led by General Allenbee, invaded Palestine from Egypt. Around Christmas 1917, the British captured Jerusalem and immediately became the dominant ruler of the entire region. They are now capable enough to control the fate of the land according to their own interests, perceptions and prejudices. Many Britons believe they know enough about this "holy land," and the more devout Christians are, the more they think they are capable of making the best arrangements for the land. Prime Minister Lloyd George is undoubtedly one of them. Before Allenby set out on the expedition, a Welsh politician with a religious education from an early age gave his generals a copy of the Historical Geography of the Holy Land. In his view, the work, written by theologian George Adam Smith, was more effective in guiding the Palestinian war than "any investigation report in the War Department document." [1] Lloyd George's foreign secretary, Arthur Balfour, also came from an evangelical family that emphasized "biblical infallibility." [2] In his understanding, history is only "an instrument for divine ends." [3] Of course, this in no way meant that the British cabinet was making political decisions based on religious beliefs rather than national interests. However, such religious ideas and similar social atmospheres can indeed provide a lofty basis and self-consistent logic for politicians' ulterior colonial interests and absurd political decisions.

When Allenby's army gave British Christians the right to dominate the "holy land" of Palestine, a religious project that had existed only in the imagination was put on the agenda: Christian Zionism, which would return Jews to the so-called land of Mount Zion in Israel and be "redeemed" there according to the evangelical Postmillennial. And in this way, it fits the long era of justice and peace before the "second coming of Christ" in the religious imagination. [4] British evangelical interest in Jews grew in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and reached its peak at the end of the eighteenth century. The outbreak of the French Revolution filled evangelical communities with worry and fear. [5] There was more talk of the collapse of the Church and the coming of the end times, and the restoration of the Jews became an increasingly urgent matter for many British Christians. [6]

In the ensuing Anglo-French struggle, Christian Zionism gradually went beyond the religious imagination and became the need of British geopolitical and colonial interests. Faced with the "holy land" of Palestine, threatened by the regimes of Napoleon and then by the regimes of Mohammed Ali in Egypt, Palmerston, the "expert on gunboat diplomacy" who had led the Opium Wars, began to believe that "the Jews helped support a collapsing Ottoman Empire and in doing so help achieve key British foreign policy objectives in the region." [7] Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, who was close to Palmerston, greatly influenced his views. [8] Like the "godfather" of Zionism in Christianity, the Earl of Shaftesbury (1801-1885) believed that the "restoration" of the Jews in Palestine was not only a biblical prophecy, but also a necessity for British political interests. This approach would not only put Britain in a more advantageous position to divide the Ottoman legacy in the East, but would also allow the British to assume the responsibility of "God's chosen people" and further shape people's national identity and identity. [9]

It is not difficult to see that Christian Zionism is essentially an attempt by some Europeans and Americans (such as John Adams,[10] the second president of the United States, to dominate other people and land according to their own political interests and religious prejudices. In the process, even Jews who seemed to have "gained" became victims of colonial ambitions and religious fanaticism. In the view of the Earl of Shaftesbury, "... The Jews will return to their homeland on a much larger scale and become farmers of Judea and Galilee again." But his original intention was to give these "prophesied humiliation and contempt" the opportunity to be "born and redeemed": even though the Jews are still "low and abhorred" today, they are still entitled to "liberation in the glorious freedom of the gospel." [11] The act of helping the Jews to be restored, converted, and thus redeemed was what the Earl of Shaftesbury saw as an important means of salvation for Christians themselves.

That is to say, Christian Zionism is also a manifestation of European anti-Semitism: people with similar views still believe that people who believe in Judaism are inferior and need to be "corrected", and that placing them in the "Promised Land" in the Bible will not only use Jews as a tool to help Christians "accumulate virtue and do good", but also help to create a Europe completely free from the "Jewish question". An important question today is whether the inhabitants of Judaism really want to go to a distant land and rebuild a country destroyed by the Romans in the first century AD. At the end of the nineteenth century, the idea of "Zionism" provoked a wave of opposition among the Jews. For many reformist scholars, the idea that Judea is the home of the Jews has caused Jews around the world to lose their homes. An Austrian rabbi put it bluntly: "Europe is our home." [12] Isaac Mayer Wise, the most influential reformist in the United States at the same time, made it clear: "The idea of a Jewish return to Palestine is not part of our creed." We believe that God wants all earth to be holy and all human beings to be chosen people. ”[13]

In addition to the reformist community of Judaism, many ultra-Orthodox Jewish scholars of the time would also strongly oppose the "Zionist" project. In their deeply conservative religious thinking, Jews should not voluntarily try to end their exile before the true "Messiah" arrives, but should maintain the most traditional way of life while quietly waiting for God's will. For Orthodox, the idea of "Zionism" is turning Jews into a secular people who are invisible: with the same land and the same language, national sentiment will replace scripture and precepts as the primary dependency of Jewish religion, something religious conservatives would never want. [14] Of course, in a Europe where nationalism is on the rise, the shift of religious identity to national identity and participation in politics seem to have become an inevitable trend. But even in the relatively secular Jewish political movement, "Zionism" is far from the only option.

One day in October 1897, in the tiny attic of a poor worker's house in Vilnius, Lithuania, 13 young men and women under the age of thirty formally established the "General Union of Jewish Workers in Russia and Poland," or "Bund" (trade union or federation) on behalf of Jewish socialist groups throughout Russia. The group's aim was to unite all the working Jewish people in Russia to build a socialist state that advocated freedom and democracy. In less than two years, Bund attracted thousands of Jewish workers and intellectuals and became the largest workers' socialist party under the Tsar. [15] In Bund's view, the Jews would be truly emancipated like any other ethnic group in a socialist revolution in which Europe's deep-seated anti-Semitism could only be solved along with other economic, political, and national oppression issues. As a result, the idea of "Zionism" became the expression of passive evasion in the eyes of most Jewish socialists and was fiercely criticized. On his election poster, Bangde shouted: "Where we live, our country is!" ”[16]

However, it was in the same year that Bund was founded that the Zionists, who believed that the "homeland of Mount Zion" 2,000 years ago was the seat of their country, also made their strongest voice. From August 29 to 31, 1897, in the Stadtcasino in Basel, Switzerland, far more ornate than the small attic of Vilnius, more than 200 representatives of the Zionist community dressed in gowns and white ties, accompanied by nearly twenty equally richly dressed female observers and witnessed by more than 20 journalists from all over Europe, held the first Zionist congress in history.

The convener of the conference, Theodor Herzl, the "father of the modern Zion" movement, was a journalist of Jewish descent from Hungary. As a modern bourgeois intellectual immersed in German-speaking cultural circles since childhood, Herzl knew much more about music, theater and poetry than about Jewish religion itself. Yet in a Europe where antisemitism is rampant, Herzl, who lived and worked in Vienna and Paris, still had to deal with the problems that Jewish identity caused him and other Jews. At a time when popular politics and anti-Semitism were increasingly combined, the Dreyfus affair, which he witnessed in France, was still just the tip of the iceberg of the crisis. [17] Herzl had every reason to believe that the reason why Jews could not integrate into European society was not because of their lack of will, but because they could never be accepted by the people here, a group of people who had become increasingly fanatical in a climate of nationalism and popular politics. Thus, efforts to continue the fight against antisemitism or to prove its absurdity became futile in Herzl's eyes. He thus proposed an alternative solution – to unite the Jews and respond to the question of nationalism in a nationalist way. Herzl then uttered that famous cry: "We are one people, one people!" "And such a nation needs a country of its own. [18]

In 1896, Herzl condensed his thoughts into a concise and highly mobilizing book, Der Judenstaat. He first explained the unsolvable "Jewish question" again according to his own understanding, and then explained the necessity of the Jews as a people to leave and establish a state en masse. But this is not unique to The Jewish State, and Herzl's real innovation is that he provided a detailed and clear plan for the establishment of the "Jewish State" - the establishment of a joint-stock Jewish chartered company in London governed and protected by English law. "The Jewish corporation would be built in part on the model of large land acquisition companies, which might be called Jewish concessionaires, but it would not be able to exercise sovereignty and would not be limited to purely colonial work." Herzl even gave a preliminary estimate of the company's capital – 100 million marks, or 50 million pounds. [19] At the same time, the Zionists would establish unified social groups and gradually advance the immigration program until the "Jewish State" was finally established. As for the steps to escalate, Herzl's statement is equally clear: "We will not leave the old home until the new home is ready to meet us... Those who are now desperate will be the first to leave, followed by the poor, followed by the well-off, and finally the rich. ”[20]

What we've just read is not science fiction about colonizing Mars, but a real immigration plan. That's the crux of everything. Herzl's destination was not uninhabited Mars, but Ottoman Palestine. Herzl did give two options in The Jewish State, Palestine or Argentina. But Palestine, "our historic home that we will never forget" is undoubtedly the best option in his mind. In Herzl's view, the reason Jews were still reluctant to leave Europe was "because they didn't know where to go," and now "we are showing them the way to the Promised Land." [21]

But this is not true. What Herzl did not want to see, or deliberately ignored, was that at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Jews who genuinely desperate for Europe under Tsarist Russia had begun to emigrate. Millions of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe did not choose to "return" to Palestine, but went to the "New World" of the United States. [22] As for Ottoman Palestine, hundreds of thousands of Arabs lived here, occupying 90% of the region's population and 99% of the land. [23] Yet in an age of imperialist and colonial thinking, Herzl did not even bother to mention these facts: "We should build there [Palestine] a bulwark between Europe and Asia, an outpost of civilization against barbarism." [24] This was almost all he had.

The Jewish State received mixed reviews upon publication. Herzl's ideas gained a large following among Jews, but they also caused great controversy. As mentioned earlier, opposition to Zionism arose among Jewish groups with very different views, including ultra-Orthodox, Reformation and socialists. But even so, Herzl's plan made important progress. On August 29, 1897, in the concert hall of the casino in Basel, Switzerland, Herzl solemnly declared to the delegates of the First Zionist Congress and to many European journalists: "We want to lay the foundation stone for the Jewish homeland, which will surely become the refuge of the Jewish people." [25] Throughout his speech, Herzl did not mention half of the Arab or Muslim communities who have lived in Palestine for generations and constitute the overwhelming majority of the population, but he did mention Christians to the guests and journalists: "... The settlement of Jews would also inevitably improve the situation of Christians in the Near East. "This is Herzl's consistent strategy. He never concealed Zionism's attachment to European power and Christian communities.

Professor Anita Shapira summed it up clearly: "Herzl believed in the humanity and progress of Europe, and believed that Europeans, on the one hand, wanted to drive out the Jews around them, but on the other hand they would humanely help them build their own country. [26] In fact, Herzl's compromise and acceptance of the desire of European anti-Semites to "drive out the Jews" was itself a great danger. Herzl, like anti-Semites, believed that Europe was not home to the Jewish people—even though this was a view that socialists, including Bund, and many Reformation scholars strongly rejected. Herzl believed that a humane European would send Jews to Palestine, but he could not have foreseen that some dehumanizing Europeans would send them to Auschwitz forty years later. And who would not think that the place where they were about to be driven by the Nazis was their true home?

If there is still the absurd belief that the best solution to national oppression and other structural oppression is to flee, as if fascism is never far away, then the destination should not be at least Palestine, where hundreds of thousands of Arabs and tens of thousands of local Jews have lived in peace for generations under the Ottoman Empire. Herzl and other Zionists thought they had found the optimal solution to the "Jewish question" in Europe, but in fact they were not solving the problem, or even running away from it, but passing it on and creating new ones.

But in any case, Herzl found like-minded partners and Christian friends other than Jews—people who he saw as representing the humanity and conscience of Europe. Evangelical Zionists who advocated the transfer of Jews to Palestine according to biblical "revelation" in order to redeem both Jews and Christians before Christ's return became Herzl's best friend. They had the same plan for different intentions, and the same plan was what Herzl valued most. Thus, at the first Zionist Congress in 1897, three Christians were found, including William Hechler, a British embassy in Vienna, a priest and Herzl's best friend. Twelve years before Herzl wrote The Jewish State, Heckler had published a theological work advocating the resettlement of Jews in Palestine in accordance with biblical "revelation." [27] Now, after reading The Jewish State, he excitedly told the British ambassador in Vienna: "The prophesied movement has appeared! ”[28]

Heckler soon got in touch with Herzl and invited him to his apartment. The latter detailed the meeting in his diary. After stepping into a room filled with books from floor to ceiling, Herzl was surprised to find that it was "all Bible." Heckler then took out a map of the Palestinian military that was large enough to cover the entire ground. "We've got it ready for you!". Heckler happily showed Herzl on a map where the Jews should build a new temple. At the end of the meeting, Heckler played an enthusiastic Zionist song for Herzl on the organ. [29] The modern and secular Herzl could never have had much common language with the "overly pious" English priest in front of him. Afterwards, he wrote in his diary: "I think he (Heckler) was a naïve dreamer with a collector's style. Yet there was always something fascinating in his naïve enthusiasm, and it was especially evident in me when he sang that song for me. [30] How is this not the epitome of the two groups behind them? The Zionists among the Jews and the millennials among the Christians talk about each other, attract each other and become friends because of a common plan, and in the process of cooperating they are only tools for each other's own ends, naïve tools.

Heckler then became Herzl's bridge between mainstream and high society in Europe. The convening of the first Zionist Congress undoubtedly marked a major breakthrough in the duo's plan. Before Herzl died of heart problems in 1904, he had many opportunities to sell the Zion Plan to those in power everywhere, including not only British politicians, the Grand Duke of Baden, but even Kaiser Wilhelm II himself. However, the most important of all is still the ruler who Herzl sees as truly "capable of single-handedly deciding the fate of Zionism" – Abdul Hamid II, the Ottoman sultan who actually controls Palestine, and the last powerful Sultan before the Young Turks revolution.

Between 1896 and 1902, Herzl traveled to Istanbul five times to sell his plans to Ottoman dignitaries. In the process, he did get a chance to meet the Sudan. However, regardless of Herzl's conditions and visions, there was no reason for the Ottoman authorities to betray the sovereignty of the country and further exacerbate the already complex national problems in the country. Abdul Hamid II politely received his guests and alertly told his ministers that the government must do its utmost to stop the Zionist migration plans, both at home and abroad. [31] To comfort the worried bureaucrats, the Sultan stated that he "understood their evil plans and would protect his Jewish subjects while making enemies of the Jews who were full of illusions about Palestine." [32] Despite the efforts of the Ottoman diplomatic service, the Zionist movement never received open support from the Western powers. Herzl's plan was thus bogged down. In 1899, the leader of the Zion movement in New York complained that his organization now had difficulty not only recruiting new members, but also retaining old members. [33] This is the end of the first story of the Zion movement. On July 2, 1904, at the age of 44, Herzl still prayed to Heckler on his deathbed: "Greet Palestine on my behalf." I gave my heart and soul to my people. ”[34]

Herzl did not witness the breakthrough of the Zion movement, but the subsequent history of the founding of the State of Israel bears witness to his prescience. The reason for the success of the Zion movement was not that Herzl's plan was more correct than that of other Jewish groups of the time, but simply that it did enjoy the much-needed support of the Western powers, as the Jewish State indicates. It is true that the Jewish Zionism represented by Herzl and the Christian Zionism represented by Heckler have formed a strange alliance, but such an alliance is still not enough to promote substantial progress in the overall plan. But more than a decade later, when the British authorities joined such an alliance with national interests and colonial ambitions, everything would change.

At the end of 1917, when Allenbee's Egyptian Expeditionary Force was about to present Jerusalem to the British people as a Christmas present, Prime Minister Lloyd George and Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour made a new arrangement for the areas of Palestine that would be fully occupied by British troops. Lloyd George and Arthur Balfour would tie the evangelical creed to British overseas interests, as the Earl of Shaftesbury did. Lloyd George once said, "In the schools I used to attend, I learned far more about Jewish history than I did about my own land." I could list all the kings of Israel for you, but I doubt I could not even name six kings of England, and even fewer of Wales..."[35] While World War I was still going on, Lloyd George, Prime Minister of England, incorporated national interest considerations into his knowledge of religious beliefs and ancient history.

If the British entrenched in Egypt wanted to secure the Suez Canal, they had to keep the Palestinian area bordering the Sinai Peninsula on the eastern side of the river firmly in their own hands – or at least not directly to the Arabs. In addition, the two good ports of Haifa and Acre on the Palestinian coast have been painted red in the Sykes-Pico Agreement to represent Britain's core interests, which are the Mediterranean ports that the British aspired to. Equally important, as Lloyd George later stated, "public opinion in Russia and the United States will play a crucial role in resolving some of the important wartime issues." And we had every reason to believe that whether the attitude of the Jews towards us in these two countries was hostile or friendly would make a huge difference in the outcome of things." [36] At this point, the embrace of Zion became the answer to all of these questions in the eyes of Lloyd George and his Foreign Secretary Balfour.

Belfort Declaration

On November 2, 1917, Belfort sent a letter to British Jewish banker and politician Baron Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild, who actively supported the Zionist movement, and commissioned him to convey the contents of the letter to an organization called the Zionist League. The body of the letter is concise:

"His Majesty's Government is in favor of the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine and will do its utmost to achieve this goal. To be clear, nothing should prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish community in Palestine, as well as the rights and political status of Jews in other countries. ”[37]

No matter how vague or "harsh" the conditions attached to the Balfour Declaration of the Jewish "national home," the Zionists had now received the promise they had dreamed of: the British, who were to take de facto control of Palestine, had given the green light to their immigration plans, and that the "national home" with infinite possibilities could naturally turn into a nation-state when the time came. As for the seemingly justified conditions of the second half of the declaration, the absurdity is shocking. The London authorities were not unaware of the distinction between "civil and religious rights" and "political status," but they were only willing to promise the latter to Jews in other countries. And even such a promise was wishful thinking on the part of the British: Will anti-Semitic sentiment abate or intensify when anti-Semites in other countries realize that the Jewish national home is not in Europe or the United States, as they believe, but elsewhere? How can the British be responsible for this?

And this is still not the most critical issue. According to the Balfour Declaration, as long as the Zionists were willing to guarantee the basic "civil and religious rights" of "the remaining non-Jewish community in Palestine," they could no longer emigrate to this so-called "homeland," a land that most of them had never set foot on – without any regard for the indigenous Palestinian population. The term "Palestinian non-Jewish community" is as absurd as referring to Londoners as "non-Welsh". In the eyes of the British government, Arab Muslims and Christians, who make up more than 90% of the population of Palestine, do not deserve any independent title, and the Sharif Hussein family, who are fighting alongside the British on the front lines, and the Arab nationalists they represent do not deserve any say on the Palestinian issue. Foreign Secretary Balfour, who implemented the Cabinet resolution, was by no means unaware of the presence of Arabs, he just didn't care. Two years later, Balfort left a shocking passage in a letter to his colleagues:

"With regard to Palestine, we do not even plan to formally solicit the wishes of the existing inhabitants ... All four great powers embraced Zionism. Rightly or wrongly, for better or worse, Zionism stems from long traditions, the needs of reality, and the hopes of the future. Its importance is far greater than the will and prejudice of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit this ancient land. In my opinion, it is correct..."[38]

Great power interests, religious prejudices, and the Zion movement were thus firmly bound together and eventually formed an irresistible force. Of the three, the Zion movement, started by Herzl, itself became a subordinate factor. Lloyd George and Balfour did not believe in Herzl's Jewish State, but in the earlier theory put forward by the Earl of Shaftesbury that whatever the Jews themselves might think, having them "restored" Palestine was a Christian millenniallist creed and a requirement of British practical interests. The British were indeed seduced by the Zion movement, but by the time of the Balfour Declaration they were ready to be seduced by any Zion leader.

Exegesis:

[1] George, D. L. (1934). War Memoirs: Volume II. London: Odhams Press. 1090.

[2] Lewis, D. M. (2010). The Origins of Christian Zionism. Cambridge University Press. 4.

[3] 转引自Sizer, S. (2012). The Road to Balfour: The History of Christian Zionism. The Balfour Project.

[4] Clouse, R. G. (Ed.). (1977). The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views. InterVarsity Press. 117-143.

[5] Lewis, D. M. (2010). 37-38.

[6] In this regard, James Biceno published a series of works in the same period that are very representative and influential. For example, Bicheno, J. (1794). The Signs of the Time; Bicheno, J. (1807). The Restoration of the Jews.

[7] Lewis, D. M. (2010). 185.

[8] Hodder, E. (1886). Life and work of the seventh Earl of Shaftesbury. Vol. I. London. 310-311.; Hyamson, A. M. (1918). British projects for the restoration of Jews to Palestine. Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society (26), 127-164. 138.

[9] Lewis, D. M. (2010). 188.

[10] John Adams (1735-1826) stated that he "sincerely wished to see the Jews return to Judea as an independent people." He also believed that Judaism was an anachronism and that the Jewish people would eventually convert to Christianity. See Jews in America: President John Adams Embraces A Jewish Homeland (1819), in jewishvirtuallibrary.org.

[11] Shaftesbury. E. (1839). State and Prospects of the Jews. Quarterly Review. 63. January-April (1839). London. 93-107. 102; 105. The original article is anonymous, for the account of the Earl of Shaftesbury, see Hyamson, A. M. (1918). 137.

[12] For references, see Pappe, I. (2017). Ten myths about Israel. Verso Books. Chapter 3.

[13] Weinman, M. (1951). The Attitude of Isaac Mayer Wise toward Zionism and Palestine. Critical Studies in American Jewish History. 5.

[14] Kedourie, E. (1961). Nationalism. Hutchinson, London. 76.

[15] Brumberg, A. (1999). Anniversaries in conflict: On the centenary of the Jewish Socialist Labor Bund. Jewish social studies, 5 (3), 196-217. 196-197.

[16] https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Bund

[17] In 1894, Alfred Dreyfus, a French-Jewish officer, was wrongly accused of leaking intelligence to Germany and was wrongly imprisoned, and the whole incident subsequently caused heated controversy in France and almost divided the entire society.

[18] Shapira, A. (2012). Israel: A history. Brandeis University Press. 16-22.

[19] Herzl, T. (1988). The Jewish State (Der Judenstaat), translated by Sylvie d’Avigdor. Dover Publications. 98.

[20] Ibid. 83.

[21] Ibid. 155.

[22] Shapira, A. (2012). 20.

[23] Shlaim, A. (1988). Collusion across the Jordan: King Abdullah, the Zionist movement, and the partition of Palestine. Columbia University Press. 2.

[24] Herzl, T. (1988). 96.

[25] The full English version of Theodore Herzl's speech at the First Zionist Congress is available in https://zionism-israel.com/hdoc/Theodor_Herzl_Zionist_Congress_Speech_1897.htm

[26] Shapira, A. (2012). 18.

[27] Hechler, W. H. (1884). The Restoration of the Jews to Palestine.

[28] Patai, R. (1960). The Complete Diaries of Theodor Herzl. The Theodor Herzl Foundation. 310.

[29] For the entire process of Heckler's meeting with Herzl, see Ibid. 311-313.

[30] Ibid. 312.

[31] Öke, B. K. (1980). Zionists and the Ottoman Foreign Ministry during the Reign of Abdulhamid II (1876-1909). Arab Studies Quarterly, 364-374. 364.

[32] Quoted from Ibid. 366.

[33] Feinstein, M. (1965). American Zionism 1884-1904. Herzl Press. 150.

[34] Elon, A. (1975). Herzl. Holt Rinehart and Winston. 400.

[35] 转引自Sizer, S. (2004). Christian Zionism: Road-map to Armageddon?. Wipf and Stock Publishers. 62.

[36] George, D. L. (1939). Memoirs of the peace conference (Vol. 2). Yale University Press. 724.

[37] For the original text of the Balfour Declaration letter, see https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration

[38] Ingrams, D. (Ed.). (1972). Palestine Papers, 1917-1922: Seeds of Conflict. John Murray. 73.