Balfour 100 | Before Balfour: The Labour Party’s War Aims memorandum

by Guest Sun Nov 05, 2017 1:21 am

Ronnie Fraser tells the little-known story of the British Labour Party’s support for Zionism. Three months before the Balfour Declaration, its War Aims Memorandum made clear that ‘The British Labour Movement expresses the opinion that Palestine should be set free from the harsh and oppressive government of the Turk, in order that the country may form a Free State, under international guarantee, to which such of the Jewish People as desired to do so may return, and may work out their salvation’.

Contrary to popular belief, the Labour Party’s support for Zionism did not originate with the Balfour Declaration but with the Party’s own War Aims memorandum which was published in August 1917, three months before Balfour’s letter. The five thousand word memorandum set out a Socialist and Labour vision for the future, once peace had been achieved. It was divided into six sections; making the world safe for democracy, territorial questions, economic relations, the problems of peace, the restoration of the devastated areas and the reparation of wrongdoing, and a proposal to hold an international conference of labour and socialist organisations. Foremost in the Labour party’s plans was the establishment of the League of Nations. The section on territorial questions proposed solutions for Belgium, Alsace Lorraine, the Balkans, Italy, Poland and the Baltic provinces, the Jews and Palestine, and addressed the problem of the Turkish Empire, Austria-Hungary and the colonies and dependencies. Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann credited the Jewish socialist group, Poale Zion for the inclusion of Jewish rights in the memorandum.

http://fathomjournal.org/balfour-100-before-balfour-the-labour-partys-war-aims-memorandum/