(Mosaic Magazine) Martin Kramer - When the fuller story is told, the Balfour Declaration is no longer a British imperial grab but the outcome of a carefully constructed consensus of the leading democracies of the day. The key to understanding the fuller story is this: in regard to Palestine, Britain could not have acted alone, because it belonged to an alliance. The Allied powers, especially Britain and France but also Russia, Italy, and later America, were fighting together. Their policies had to be coordinated. It would have been unthinkable for Britain to have issued a public pledge regarding the future of territory yet to be taken in war without the prior assent of its wartime allies-especially those that also had an interest in Palestine. The American role deserves particular emphasis. Few Americans know that Wilson approved the Balfour Declaration in advance, or that this approval had a decisive effect in the British cabinet.
2017-06-06 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive