Israel and India have a lot in common, not least in their history. As Israel's Ambassador to the UK, Mark Regev, pointed out at a reception in July this year, both had to fight for their independence and freedom against the same British colonial power. Furthermore, both went through a difficult process of partition with refugees and displacement of peoples and both received their independence in same historical period, in the late 1940s.
Talking about Zionism is particularly topical now. This week the centenary of the Balfour Declaration is being marked. On 2 November 1917 the British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour wrote to Lord Rothschild, a leader in the British Jewish community, saying "His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." The letter also stated that "nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine." The Balfour Deceleration is seen as a significant historical event in the path that led to the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. The then Lord Rothschild described it as “the most important moment in Jewish history in the last 1,800 years.”
Remember that Jews had been exiled from Israel since the Romans invaded in 70 CE. They had therefore lived outside Israel for almost 2,000 years but had always yearned to return, for historic and spiritual reasons.
As Jews faced increasing persecution around the world in the late nineteenth century, the case for returning to Israel gathered pace. The Zionist movement was born. Whilst it has wrongly become a pejorative term in some circles, Zionism is simply the belief that Jews should have the right to their own homeland.
The inspiration of the Zionist movement at the time was Theodore Herzl (1860-1904), who lived in Budapest and then Vienna. Herzl was alarmed at the case of Alfred Dreyfus, a captain in the French army who was wrongly accused of spying for Germany. His conclusion was that the rampant anti-Semitism across Europe meant that Jews needed a homeland for themselves to be safe. He set out his vision in a famous pamphlet entitled "The Jewish State" and convened the First Zionist Congress in 1897 in Basel in Switzerland to mobilise support. Interestingly at one point Herzl toyed with the idea of a Jewish state in Uganda but this did not have widespread appeal, as most other Jewish leaders considered Israel as the only place it could be.
The Zionist baton was then taken up by Chaim Weizmann (1874-1952). A Russian-born Jew, he was a talented scientist who came to the UK as a young academic to take up a post at Manchester University. During his time in England, he met the British PM at the time Arthur Balfour. About ten years later, the two were in touch again, this time Balfour was Foreign Secretary. Through Weizmann's persuasiveness both Balfour and his PM Lloyd George were convinced of the idea of a national homeland for the Jewish people.
Whilst Balfour had made some anti-Semitics statements symptomatic of parts of the English upper classes at the time, he was a committed Christian and believed that the Jews needed their own state in Israel. Lloyd George was also what one may describe as a Christian Zionist. In a speech delivered in 1925, he reminisced about his upbringing: “I was brought up in a school where I was taught far more about the history of the Jews than about the history of my own land. I could tell you all the kings of Israel. But I doubt whether I could have named half a dozen of the kings of England, and not more of the kings of Wales.”
Through his determination and persuasiveness, it is clear that Weizmann, the impoverished immigrant academic, played a key role in persuading the British government to issue the landmark letter in 1917 that became known as the Balfour Declaration. He proudly described it as “the Magna Carta of Jewish liberation” (he was later to become Israel’s first President). But it took another three decades before the creation of Israel in 1948, by which time European Jewry had endured the tragedy of the Holocaust, when six million Jews were killed. If anything reinforced the need for Jews to have their own homeland, the ravages of the Holocaust did.
Just as with India, Israel’s creation and independence has a long history with its champions and heroes. For the likes of Herzl and Weizmann for Israel, there was Gandhi and Nehru for India. In Israel’s case, as well as the trauma for Jews, it is important to acknowledge the Arabs who were displaced. The latter population numbered about 700,000, but on the other hand it is not often appreciated that 900,000 Jews fled Arab lands in the 1940s and 1950s as a result of state-sponsored anti-Jewish policies.
Like India, Israel’s creation was a remarkable historical event, worthy of huge celebration. The Balfour Deceleration reminds us of the role Britain played in this compelling drama.
Zaki Cooper is on the Advisory Council of the Indian Jewish Association.
