The British did not know quite what to make of President Woodrow Wilson and his conviction (before Americas entrance into the war) that the way to end hostilities was for both sides to accept peace without victory. Two of Wilsons closest advisors, Louis Brandeis and Felix Frankfurter, were avid Zionists. How better to shore up an uncertain ally than by endorsing Zionist aims? The British adopted similar thinking when it came to the Russians, who were in the midst of their revolution. Several of the most prominent revolutionaries, including Leon Trotsky, were of Jewish descent. Why not see if they could be persuaded to keep Russia in the war by appealing to their latent Jewishness and giving them another reason to continue the fight? ... These include not only those already mentioned but also Britains desire to attract Jewish financial resources. At that time the British were busy making promises. At a War Cabinet meeting, held on 31 October 1917, Balfour suggested that a declaration favourable to Zionist aspirations would allow Great Britain to carry on extremely useful propaganda both in Russia and America . . . . the United Kingdom supported the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine because it would help secure post-war British control of Palestine, which was strategically important as a buffer to Egypt and the Suez Canal..[18] In addition, Palestine was to later serve as a terminus for the flow of petroleum from Iraq via Jordan, three former Ottoman Turkish provinces that became British League of Nations mandates in the aftermath of the First World War. The oil officially flowed along the Mosul-Haifa oil pipeline from 1935–1948, and unofficially up until 1954. Theres more: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration#Motivation_for_the_Declaration
Posted on: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 04:49:24 +0000
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