The Hidden History of the Balfour Declaration and the State of Israel

The Hidden History of How the US Was Used to Create the State of Israel

Allison Weir (2014)

Film Review

This 2014 talk addresses two main topics: the obscenely biased MSM coverage of the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the role of the US Zionist lobby in embroiling the US in World War I.

Weir provides a detailed breakdown of Israeli and Palestinian deaths over the period 2000-2015. In every case Palestinian deaths from Israeli Defense Force bombing and shelling exceeds Israeli deaths by 200-fold or more.

One of the most interesting tables she displays relates to Israeli military actions against Gaza in 2001, which was five years before Hamas was elected or a single rocket fired. She also shows slides from her 2001 visit to Gaza. Together they provided a horrifying glimpse of the damage recent Israeli military strikes have wreaked on Palestinian buildings and homes, as well as olive and date orchards.

Her expose of the role the US Zionist lobby played in embroiling the US in World War I begins at 29.25min.

She begins by describing the demography of Palestine in the late 1800s when Zionist groups first began began organizing in the US. In 1900, Palestine was 80% Muslim, 15% Christian and 5% Jewish. Owing to concerns it would displace Palestinian Muslims and Christians, there was strong global opposition during this period to the formation of a Jewish state in Palestine.

In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson’s close friend Louis Brandeis became chief of the world Provisional Executive Committee for General Zionist Affairs. Although he stepped down in 1916 when Wilson appointed him to the Supreme Court, he continued to play a major role in a secret Zionist group called the Parushim. In 1915, the latter had launched a major campaign to win Western support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

According to Weir, a number of scholarly Israeli sources credit Brandeis with convincing Wilson to enter World War I (as a British ally) in return for a formal British commitment (known as the Balfour Declaration*) to establish a Jewish state in Israel.

Prior to Israel’s declaration of independence in 1948, a preponderance of US statesmen and diplomat opposed the displacement of Palestine’s Arab population to establish a Jewish state. Dean Acheson** predicted it would endanger all Western interests in the Middle East. The CIA predicted it would lead to massive “bloodshed and chaos.”

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*When the Balfour Declaration was written in November 1917, Palestine was still under control of the Ottoman Empire (who had entered World War I on the side of Germany). Palestine would become a British protectorate under the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. The Balfour Declaration was actually a a letter British Foreign Minister Arthur Balfour wrote to prominent Zionist Lionel Walter Rothschild promising British support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

**Dean Acheson was Undersecretary in Truman’s State Department from 1945 to 1949, when he became Secretary of State.