What Arthur Balfour's grandnephew gets wrong

His belief that Palestine was an uninhabited land—a blank canvas devoid of people or history—betrays a mindset just as colonial as his grand uncle, Arthur Balfour

AFP-Reuters-Axel Rangel Garcia

What Arthur Balfour's grandnephew gets wrong

Hussein al-Sharaa

last update on 06 Nov 2025

In 1917, the British Foreign Secretary Lord Balfour declared that the government "views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people". He said Britain would help facilitate it, on the condition "that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country".

Balfour was expressing not just sympathy but a firm commitment to the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine. The language is unambiguous—it is a declaration of intent, reinforced by the pledge to exert the UK's "best endeavours". Yet Judaism is not a nationality; it's a religion. And no religion constitutes a nation, not even Christianity, which is practised by billions globally. Religion transcends borders and ethnicities; it does not define a country.

The 'Balfour Declaration' repeatedly refers to Palestine as a geographical entity, yet conspicuously omits any mention of the Palestinian people, rendering them invisible or incidental residents, not a people with historical presence and political agency. In doing so, it perpetuates the myth of "a land without a people," limiting Palestinians' rights to civil and religious protections while withholding recognition of their national status.

AFP — An undated photograph, possibly taken in 1948, of Palestinian children from Beersheba waiting for the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine.

Rendered invisible

At the time of the Declaration, Jews constituted 3% of Palestine's population. They were not a national group, but religious communities—similar to Jewish populations in Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Morocco, Libya and other Arab countries. These communities lived in harmony with their surroundings and were often integrated as citizens, many holding public office. They were not representatives of a separate nation.

In an interview with Al Majalla, Balfour's grandnephew, Lord Roderick, offered a reading that reveals how history can be misremembered. He appeared keen to absolve his granduncle of the calamity that befell the Palestinian people—and, by extension, the wider Arab and Muslim worlds. His interpretation of his grand uncle's declaration overlooked or sidestepped the existence of an indigenous population inhabiting the land delineated by the Sykes-Picot Agreement.

This 20,000 sq.km. territory extended from the northern slopes of Mount Amel in Lebanon to the international frontier of Egypt in Sinai, encompassing a constellation of historic cities. In the north stood Safed, a long-established Palestinian city, alongside the Galilee and its northernmost reaches. Along the Mediterranean coast lay Jaffa and Wadi al-Rabi'. Jerusalem, a spiritual and civilisational beacon, housed both the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Tiberias sat on the southwestern shore of its eponymous lake, while the West Bank was home to ancient cities such as Nablus, Jenin, Ramallah, Lod and Birzeit. Jericho—widely regarded as the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world—lay nearby, as did the Dead Sea, Gaza, Al-Qastal, Beisan, and the once-thriving port of Haifa, a major maritime hub for the wider Arab region prior to its occupation.

Palestine was deeply integrated into regional infrastructure. The railway connecting Syria to Haifa extended through Palestinian territory and reached Al-Arish, Alexandria, and Cairo, eventually stretching as far as Medina. This Ottoman-era network reflected the region's historical connectivity and strategic value.

Hejaz Railway, Beersheba, Palestine, 1900s (Hicaz Demiryolu, Birüssebi, Filistin) pic.twitter.com/d4uJ9ZmJmU
— Ottoman Imperial Archives (@OttomanArchive) June 18, 2017

Seeds of change

Lord Roderick Balfour failed to acknowledge that the 1917 Balfour Declaration was issued in the aftermath of the Sykes-Picot Agreement and the involvement of the Russian consul in the dismemberment of the Levant—a region bound by shared people, culture, geography, landscape and familial ties. It was not (as is so often claimed) a philanthropic gesture toward Judaism as a religion. Rather, it served the imperial ambitions of Britain at a time when much of Europe harboured entrenched animosity toward its Jewish communities.

In countries such as Britain and Russia, Jews were prohibited from owning land, denied access to housing and public employment, and often confined to roles in financial services and lending. In this milieu, the Rothschild family's banking empire rose to prominence, funding the Jewish National Fund and exerting pressure on European governments—particularly the British government—to issue a declaration in support of the Zionist cause.

Gaining momentum since the 1897 Basel Conference under Theodor Herzl, Zionism called for a homeland for dispersed Jewish communities. Various locations were proposed—Uganda, northern Iraq, and Argentina—but it was British colonial policy that ultimately adopted the idea, aligning it with the strategic vision outlined in the 1907 Campbell Document, formulated during the premiership of Henry Campbell-Bannerman. This document laid out a colonial strategy designed to preserve Western hegemony.

The Balfour Declaration served the imperial ambitions of Britain at a time when much of Europe harboured entrenched animosity toward its Jewish communities

Arab resistance

Sultan Abdul Hamid II firmly rejected the Rothschild proposal; however, refusing to cede Palestine to foreign interests or to grant autonomy to a Jewish entity within its borders, the colonial powers activated Plan B, which was pivotal in the sequence of events that led to the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. The Balfour Declaration, following up on the Campbell Document of 1907, which had laid the conceptual groundwork for the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, was issued in 1917.

The British Mandate for Palestine was enacted alongside the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 and the Arab Revolt led by Sharif Hussein against the declining Ottoman Empire. The collapse of the Ottoman military—particularly the Fourth Army under the command of Jamal Pasha, known as 'the Butcher'—was expedited by British intelligence operatives such as T.E. Lawrence ('Lawrence of Arabia') and Gen. Edmund Allenby, who authorised the sabotage of the Hejaz railway between Ma'an and Medina, and whose advance into Palestine secured Britain's imperial interests.

Following the First World War, the newly formed League of Nations awarded mandates over the Levant and Mesopotamia. France took control of Syria, Lebanon, and northern Iraq, while Britain assumed authority over Palestine, Transjordan, and Iraq. Russia's Bolshevik Revolution in November 1917, led by Lenin, led it to withdraw from the imperial carve-up and publicly reveal the secret terms of the Sykes–Picot Agreement.

Britain appointed Herbert Samuel—a Jewish statesman and close associate of the Rothschild family—as High Commissioner for Palestine. One of his earliest acts was to authorise the establishment of a headquarters for the Jewish National Fund, which began financing mass Jewish immigration from the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and Britain. Land was bought from families such as the Sursuqs of Lebanon and from Syrian landowners who had inherited large Ottoman-era estates.

AFP — A picture dated 12 December 1947 showing Jewish settlers who had recently arrived illegally in Palestine under British mandate and their guards around a campfire at an unlocated colony.

Zionism's ascent

Thus began the transformation of Palestine's landscape. Jewish settlers organised themselves into agricultural cooperatives known as kibbutzim and moshavim, cultivating and constructing with both the tacit approval and active support of Herbert Samuel, who oversaw the suppression of Palestinian and Arab uprisings in 1921, 1923 (the Buraq uprising), 1927, 1936 (a rebellion led by Syrian cleric Izz al-Din al-Qassam), and 1947 (the resistance campaigns of Musa al-Husayni and Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni.

Each time, the British army responded with force, while facilitating the rise of Zionist paramilitary groups like the Stern Gang and Haganah. Britain's alignment with the Zionist movement deepened over time, culminating in the formation of the Histadrut (the Zionist labour federation) and a constellation of Zionist political parties. By 1948, the Jewish military structure had outmatched the fragmented Arab forces that attempted to defend Palestine, including the Arab Liberation Army led by Fawzi al-Qawuqji.

Britain's withdrawal was not a retreat, but a calculated transition: nearly 60% of historic Palestine was handed over to the emerging Jewish state. On 15 May 1948, David Ben-Gurion declared the establishment of the State of Israel, which was swiftly recognised by the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain and France. This state was not forged in isolation but through a meticulously orchestrated timeline, beginning in 1907. It had strategic and material support first from France (which supplied Mirage fighter jets and helped build the Dimona nuclear facility) and later from the United States, particularly after the 1956 Suez Crisis.

Continuing a trend

Lord Roderick's assertion that the Arabs sought to destroy the Jewish state veers significantly from the historical record. In fact, the State of Israel—supported by Britain, France and the US—engaged in wars against the Palestinian people and forcibly displaced 700,000 of them in 1948, a catastrophe known as the Nakba. Cities such as Safed, Haifa, Jaffa, Al-Qastal, Khudayra, Umm al-Fahm, Tiberias, and towns in the West Bank and Arab Jerusalem remain unmistakably Palestinian in origin.

AFP — During the Nakba of 1948, when Palestinians were expelled from their land.

Since 1948, Israel has conducted repeated military campaigns against Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and the Palestinian population. It attacked Egypt in 1956 (the Suez Crisis), occupied the West Bank, Gaza, Wadi Araba and the Syrian Golan Heights during the 1967 War, and continues its offensives against Gaza, whose population is largely composed of refugees from the 1948 expulsions. Settlement expansion in the West Bank in direct contravention of the 1999 Oslo Accords has left only 14% of historic Palestine intact. From 1948 to 50, Israel demolished around 500 Palestinian villages, while Jewish immigrants took over Palestinian homes in the cities listed above.

Indeed, the establishment of the state known as Israel has exacted a profound toll on the Arab world—particularly on Syria, Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon. Endowed with natural resources, human capital, and a deep culture, the nations have been drawn into cycles of war and reconstruction, constantly forced to confront aggression and prepare for future conflict, which consumes their energies and stunts their development, while Israel is sustained economically, militarily, and diplomatically by the West.

Colonial mindset

From the interview, it appears that Arthur Balfour's grandnephew shares his colonial mindset, viewing the Declaration and the arrival of Jewish settlers in Palestine as if the land were uninhabited—a blank canvas devoid of people or history. This perspective perpetuates the myth of terra nullius and effectively erases the lived experience of the Palestinian people, hence the enduring saying that Balfour "gave what was not his to give, to those who had no rightful claim".

If Balfour's descendant seeks proof of Palestine's historical presence, he need only look at the passport once held by Golda Meir—later Prime Minister of Israel—which bore the designation 'Palestinian.' Meir herself once declared: "I am Palestinian."

Similarly, Shimon Peres formally applied for Palestinian citizenship in 1927. This is documentary evidence of a land and a people whose existence long predates the Israeli state.

In truth, Mr Balfour's grandnephew has failed to reckon with the full implications of his grand uncle's legacy, notably the historical arc that led to the occupation of Palestine—one characterised by colonial disdain for Arabs and Islam, and by strategic efforts to 'divide and conquer' the region. This is the ideology—rooted in racism—that continues to underpin the policies of Israel and its principal allies. Arab resistance has never been a rejection of Judaism as a religion. Rather, it has been a response to occupation. The struggle is not against a faith, but against a settler-colonial project that displaced a people and laid claim to their homeland.

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