The Future of Palestine facts for kids

Quick facts for kids The Future of Palestine
The first draft of the memorandum as published in the British Cabinet papers (CAB 37/123/43), as at 21 January 1915
Created	January–March 1915
Authors	Herbert Samuel
Purpose	Advocate for incorporation of Palestine as British Protectorate in the British Empire

The Future of Palestine, also known as the Samuel memorandum, was a memorandum circulated by Herbert Samuel to the British Cabinet in January and March 1915, two months after the British declaration of war on the Ottoman Empire.

It was the first time in an official record that enlisting the support of Jews as a war measure was proposed.

Background

Palestine was first discussed at British Cabinet level on 9 November 1914, four days after Britain's declaration of war on the Ottoman Empire. David Lloyd George, then Chancellor of the Exchequer "referred to the ultimate destiny of Palestine." Lloyd George's law firm Lloyd George, Roberts and Co had been engaged a decade before by the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland to work on the Uganda Scheme. In a discussion after the meeting President of the Local Government Board Herbert Samuel, Lloyd George assured him that "he was very keen to see a Jewish state established in Palestine." Samuel then outlined the Zionist position more fully in a conversation with Foreign Secretary Edward Grey. He spoke of Zionist aspirations for the establishment in Palestine of a Jewish state, and of the importance of its geographical position to the British Empire. The same evening, Prime Minister H. H. Asquith announced that the dismemberment of the Turkish Empire had become a war aim in a speech for the Lord Mayor's Banquet at the Mansion House, "It is the Ottoman Government, and not we who have rung the death knell of Ottoman dominion not only in Europe but in Asia."

Cabinet level discussions

In December 1914 Samuel met Chaim Weizmann, who after the war was elected as the President of the World Zionist Organization, and later the first President of Israel. Samuel was then a member of the British Cabinet in his role as President of the Local Government Board. According to Weizmann's memoirs, Samuel was already an avid believer in Zionism, and believed that Weizmann's demands were too modest. Samuel did not want to enter into a detailed discussion of his plans, but mentioned that "perhaps the Temple may be rebuilt, as a symbol of Jewish unity, of course, in a modernised form".

A case study says that recollections of Josiah Wedgwood confirm those of David Lloyd George (supported by the National Archives) that the first meeting between Lloyd George and Weizmann was in August 1915 while noting that several sources refer to a meeting in December 1914 or January 1915. (According to Schneer, on 15 January 1915, Weizmann and Samuel met at 11 Downing Street with Lloyd George but sources that to Weizmann's Trial and Error which gives the date as 3 December 1914.) At the end of January, Samuel forwarded the memorandum to Prime Minister H. H. Asquith and Foreign Minister Edward Grey for approval.

Lloyd George, who was later to be Prime Minister himself at the time of the Balfour Declaration, was noted by Asquith to be the only Cabinet member strongly in favour of the proposal.

The memorandum

The memorandum began by noting that the outbreak of World War I presented an opportunity for a change "in the status of Palestine". He noted that it would likely be too early for an independent Jewish state, and that incorporation into the British Empire would be the solution "which would be much the most welcome to the leaders and supporters of the Zionist movement throughout the world".

The memorandum then set out five benefits to the British Empire of such a strategy. These were:

1. It would enable the country "to fulfil in yet another sphere her historic part of civiliser of the backward countries."

2. It would raise the prestige of the British Empire

3. It would allow a positive outcome of the war for the British Empire without stripping Germany of her colonies and creating a war of revenge

4. It would improve the defences of Egypt, acting as a strong frontier

5. It "would win for England the lasting gratitude of the Jews throughout the world", including 2 million Jews in the United States

The alternatives to British annexation were then considered. French annexation was considered "unwelcome to the Jews", Internationalisation would "lay the country under a dead hand", annexation to a Greater Egypt would introduce complications, and leaving the country to Turkey with guarantees for Jewish colonisation would likely leave the situation substantially unimproved.

Samuel then concluded by noting that whilst a British Palestine would not alone solve the Jewish question in Europe, it would have an important effect upon "the character" of the world's Jews, thereby enriching the world.

Reactions

According to Friedman, the final March version ("as presumably also the January one") was not discussed in either Cabinet or the War Council.

Writing earlier on 5 February, Rufus Isaacs, 1st Marquess of Reading noted that "[Lloyd-George was] inclined to the sympathetic side – your proposal appeals to the poetic and imaginative as well as to the romantic and religious qualities of his mind".