April 18, 1919

Mr. Balfour is growing increasingly sensitive at the criticism of the declaration he made to the House of Commons on November 2, 1917, which at least the Zionists have interpreted as the promise of a Jewish state, a national home for the long homeless people. It is undoubtedly unfortunate, and certainly Balfour failed to appreciate the fact, that Jerusalem is esteemed holy not only by the Jews but by the Christians and the Mohammedans as well. ‘

To House yesterday Balfour voiced this complaint and with it his explanation. “My declaration was not inspired by sentiment, although I am free to admit I think we owe the Jews something substantial for the way, in all quarters of the world and on many battle fronts, they have rallied to the support of the Allies. Not the least of my grievances is the fact that neither my critics nor my friends have really read my declaration, which I can assure you had been carefully weighed and long pondered over. Indeed, even the Zionists who are most vitally concerned seem quite unfamiliar with its contents. I came out for a Jewish homeland in Palestine in so far as it could be established without infringing on the rights of the Arab communities, nomad as well as sedentary. Indeed, I thought that in the terms of my declaration the rights of the Arabs were safeguarded as never before.”

Then Balfour’s pale face grew flushed. Evidently, he was angry all through. “I should think any person would see that my pronouncement was not dictated by sentiment but was a war measure. I thought that our war aim was to give equal rights and even-handed justice to all the oppressed. May I not say that was our rallying cry and that it reverberated throughout the world? In a word it was what you call in the States our ‘slogan.’ It was, I thought, merely a happy coincidence that this belated act of justice to the Jews would establish their national home at the Eurasian crossroads and would prove a protection to the wasp waist of our empire, Suez.”

House assured Balfour that even his critics appreciated the noble purpose of his proposal, but he admitted he saw difficulties ahead if the project were ever to be realized.

[1924. The fighting in Jerusalem and in Jaffa in 1920 and 1921, some of which I witnessed, and the resulting ferment among the Arabs, showed only too clearly that these misgivings were well founded. Indeed, in the last-mentioned year, well-meaning Mr. Balfour, while visiting in Palestine, only escaped from the hands of the rioters by the most opportune arrival of a British war vessel which carried him speedily out of harm’s way. The problem that the declaration raised still defies solution. On the other hand, it has proved of great help to the German propaganda among the Arabs who, justly displeased with their treatment at Versailles, are inclined to think that their claims in Asia, as well as in Africa, would receive more intelligent and generous treatment in Berlin.]

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In the foregoing paragraphs I tell the official story of how it fared with the Zionists at the Conference. They are fragmentary, but at least they reveal all I know officially about the subject which was one of the most hush-hush of the problems that were discussed and so often sidetracked at the Conference. Certainly, the problem remains unsolved and the Balfour Declaration, in my judgment at least, does not rate high as a peace panacea. It has alarmed fifty million Arabs in or living adjacent to the areas where the religious clashes have occurred for centuries and also at least two hundred million of their co-religionists who, scattered throughout the world, are adjusting their tribal differences and seeking to form a Moslem bloc which all agree would not be helpful to world peace. I say nothing about the conflicting views which are advanced every Sabbath as to the disposition of this much promised land of Palestine, from the pulpits of the discordant Christian churches.

There was, however, one man who came to the Conference who was confident that the problem, nearly as old as time, had been finally adjusted and that now the peace that was once in Jerusalem would spread all over the troubled, war-racked areas. He was an octogenarian Jew* from Cracow, the duly accredited agent of his synagogue in what was before the war Austrian Poland. Through his forbears he had been a refugee in many lands, a stranger in all of them, ever since the Dispersion. Part of his name, all that I could well remember, was Ben Israel. He came to see me frequently, mainly, I fear, because no one else would see him. I told the yeomen of our guard that I was always at home to Ben Israel and that if I was in conference he was to be asked to wait.

The fact of the matter is that I enjoyed his company because he was the only man within a radius of a thousand miles of the Hotel Crillon who was convinced that the Conference had settled any of its problems; to him the fiat of Mr. Balfour was stronger than the Holy Writ that had been ignored by men of all sects for hundreds of years. Ben Israel was presenting us with a res adjudicata, the only one in sight of the squabbling delegates. Who was I, a mere subordinate, that I should scrutinize the matter more closely? To this waif, this refugee on the seas of intolerance and persecution, I could not bring myself to play the role of a kill-joy. Perhaps the old man may die

before the hour of rude awakening strikes, I thought. Whatever my purpose may have been, I never by word or gesture revealed the doubts that assailed me when he said (it was his word of greeting as well as his parting salutation), “Next year in Jerusalem we shall meet. Oh, happy, happy day when the dog-brothers no longer shall swagger about the Holy Places!”

Ben Israel was a charming talker in all the many languages which he commanded, and he had a persuasive way with him which I found impossible to resist. Indeed, in our second talk, without the slightest effort, with but a few well-chosen words, he swept into the discard all my defenses against reopening any problem that antedated the Westphalian treaties, and soon I found myself listening with rapt attention to his versions of ancient wars in Judea and the campaigns of the Crusaders. While he admitted with a certain pride that he had been born in a windowless room and had often slept on the doorsteps of his more fortunate brethren, he was scrupulously neat in his long-worn clothes. The little curlywigs of hair that clustered about his ears were not greasy, as is so often the case with the East Jews, and his long-drawn parchment features would have delighted any sculptor.

He had many novel ideas, and one at least was rather disconcerting to one who views, as we all are beginning to do, the discord and the bickerings that are developing in the councils of the so recently victorious Allies. “With us,” he asserted, “discord has only come with defeat. Alas, in the days since the Dispersion we have become divided into sects and we have lost the strength that comes with unity, battling over absurd trifles. We might well have been redeemed from the political slavery that has been ours for centuries throughout the world had we remained united, but despite the injunctions of the prophets, that was not to be. Today we wail at the Wailing Wall, but we do not wail together; even in sackcloth and ashes we stand apart.

“So today a son of the Akénazim, however versed in Talmudic lore, will not marry into a Sephardim family or take a wife from among my people who, though proscribed and banished by Isabella, still speak her language in all the lands of their exile. Twenty years ago, a Jewish lord who had prospered mightily in banking sought to put an end to this unhappy schism by offering a bonus of ten pounds to each of those who, by marrying outside of their narrow sect, would rise superior to this ancient and most unworthy prejudice. The result? There have not taken place any of these mixed marriages. The dowry money is still rusting in the great man’s coffers.”

Ben Israel was so distressed over this tribal exclusiveness that I thought to cheer him by admitting that we Christians too were kept apart by very trivial differences. “Behold the Czechs and the Slovaks,” I said. “They are blood brothers; doubtless both are West Slavs. They have been held apart, but now they are free to unite and enjoy their freedom and independence together. But they can’t get together. The new state would be fine, they admit, but the Czechs want to write it Czechoslovakia, while the Slovaks insist upon having their distinct nationality capitalized as is here written, Czechoslovakia.”

My revelation brought little comfort to the envoy from Cracow. “With us it has been worse, much worse than that,” he insisted. “Our people will not pray together. They will not live together. They will not eat together, and many a man and woman has died of starvation rather than accept a crust from a member of the antagonistic sect. Millions of people have been involved in this uncharitableness—and do you know how it came about? It sounds incredible, but is nevertheless as true as the Old Testament. The elders of that far-distant day disagreed as to the way chickens should be dressed for the kitchen. For centuries millions have suffered because of this most trivial difference of opinion.”