The Struggle for Independence 151
reservations. The Zionists have always persisted in interpreting the
Declaration in the terms of their original proposal: as recently as
August 1946 an official Jewish Agency spokesman claimed that
'the promise to the Jews of the whole of Palestine on both sides of
the Jordan was implied in the JBalfour Declaration'.1
The Army authorities in Palestine did their best to keep the news
of the Declaration from the "non-Jewish communities', i.e. the
Arabic-speaking Muslims and Christians who then constituted
90 per cent, of the population; but a report of it reached the Sharif
Husain, who with some concern asked Britain for an explanation.
The government informed him that its support of the Zionist
aspirations went only 'so far as is compatible with the freedom of
the existing population, both economic and political'. This
promise satisfied the Sharif, and early in 1919 his son Faisal reached
with Weizmann a provisional agreement over Zionism in Pales-
tine, subject however to the confirmation by the Powers of the
Arab kingdom in Syria; 'but if the slightest modification or de-
parture is made', wrote Faisal, 1 shall not then be bound by a
single word of the present agreement.' At this stage the Palestrae
Arabs had never been consulted; they had given no mandate to
Faisal to negotiate on their behalf; and his agreement with the
Zionist leader could not be considered binding on anyone but
himself and his father.
At the end of the War the political aspirations of the Zionists,
kindled by the realization at last of their ancient hopes of returning
to the Land of Promise, were heightened by the pressure exerted
on Jews to emigrate in large numbers from the highly nationalistic
-, Eastern European states which had emerged from the wreckage of
the Austrian and Russian empires;2 and they were still further
encouraged by the pronouncements of such responsible statesmen
as President Wilson, Lloyd George, Smuts, and Balfour in favour
of an eventual Jewish state or commonwealth. The ignorance of,
these statesmen with regard to the rise of Arab nationalism was!
profound, and they apparently thought of the Arabs of Palestine
(in so far as they were aware of their existence) as mere Bedouin,
as little worthy of consideration as the American Indians, the
Bantu, or any other politically unorganized and inarticulate race
1 Palestine Post, 2 August, 1946. It has been well said that Zionism is not
to be judged in terms of logic and politics, but as an intense emotional force.
(Sir Harry Haig, in International Affairs, XXII (1946), 557.)
2 Round Table, 1939, 259,
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