The Future of Palestine
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. Samuel's memoirs state:I mentioned that two things would be essential—that the state should be neutralized, since it could not be large enough to defend itself, and that the free access of Christian pilgrims should be guaranteed.... I also said it would be a great advantage if the remainder of Syria were annexed by France, as it would be far better for the state to have a European power as neighbour than the TurkThe 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 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. 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:
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. Samuel concluded by referencing a famous parliamentary speech given by Thomas Babington Macaulay in 1833 during the emancipation of British Jews
"Let a Jewish centre be established in Palestine; let it achieve, as I believe it would achieve, a spiritual and intellectual greatness; and insensibly, but inevitably, the character of the individual Jew, wherever he might be, would be ennobled. The sordid associations which have attached to the Jewish name would be sloughed off, and the value of the Jews as an element in the civilisation of the European peoples would be enhanced. The Jewish brain is a physiological product not to be despised. For fifteen centuries the race produced in Palestine a constant succession of great men – statesmen and prophets, judges and soldiers. If a body be again given in which its soul can lodge, it may again enrich the world. Till full scope is granted, as Macaulay said in the House of Commons, "let us not presume to say that there is no genius among the countrymen of Isaiah, no heroism among the descendants of the Maccabees."
Reactions
According to Friedman, the final March version was not discussed in either Cabinet or the War Council.Prime Minister H. H. Asquith noted on January 28 about the first draft:
and in March about the final version:
Writing earlier on 5 February, Rufus Isaacs, 1st Marquess of Reading noted that " 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".
Samuel's cousin and Anti-Zionist Edwin Montagu wrote a letter to Asquith on 16 March 1915:
"Palestine in itself offers little or no attraction to Great Britain from a strategical or material point of view"..." incomparably a poorer possession than, let us say, Meopotamia"..."I cannot see any Jews I know tending olive trees or herding sheep"..."There is no Jewish race now as a homogenous whole. It is quite obvious that the Jews in Great Britain are as remote from the Jews in Morocco or the black Jews in Cochin as the Christian Englishman is from the moor or the Hindoo"..."If only our peoples would...take their place as non-conformists, then Zionism would obviously die and Jews might find their way to esteem."