Was Wilson a hero to the Jews because of his support for the Balfour Declaration?
Even more of an enigma than the war itself is the U.S. entry into the conflict: temporarily ending a history of non-intervention and isolationism.
"The U.S. entry in the war cost one million British, French, American, and other lives." Winston Churchill
Up to and during the 1916 presidential campaign, the U.S. had no interest in a European adventure even after the suspicious sinking of "45,000 tons of live bait", the Lusitania.
Wilson, the 28th president of the United States (1913-1921), campaigned for re-election with the slogan, "He kept us out of war." Then ninety days after beginning his second term, he called upon Congress for a declaration of war in order to "make the world safe for democracy".
Samuel Landman, the former secretary of the World Zionist Organization, is clear:
"The only way ... to induce the American president to come into the war (was) to secure the cooperation of Zionist Jews by promising them Palestine, and thus enlist and mobilize the hitherto unsuspectedly powerful forces of Zionist Jews in America and elsewhere in favor of the Allies on a quid pro quo contract basis, the Balfour letter from Lord Alfred Milner, a Rothschild employee, to Lord Lionel Walter Rothschild."
John Cornelius, an American with long-standing interest in the Middle East, has a quid-pro-quo explanation.
The Balfour Declaration and the Zimmermann Note
In trying to unravel the puzzle of why Britain issued the Balfour Declaration, perhaps the first need is to establish that a puzzle really exists. It has been suggested that it can all be explained by money, but I find this hard to accept.
At least two statements lead one to believe that the true reason for the issuance of the Balfour Declaration remains hidden.
The first is a statement to Parliament in 1922 by Winston Churchill, then colonial secretary, that it should not be thought that, in the Balfour Declaration, Britain gave something to the Jews for which she received nothing in return.
The second is Fromkin's statement that, in his memoirs, written in the 1930s, Lloyd George says that he issued the Balfour Declaration in gratitude for Weizmann's contributions in wartime acetone production. Fromkin calls this fiction. Usually when people tell lies, it is for the purpose of concealing the truth.
A possibility that should be considered is that Britain issued the Balfour Declaration in exchange, not for something she hoped would happen in the future, but for something that had already happened in the past.
On April 6, 1917, the U.S. declared war on Germany, and on Nov. 2, the British issued the Balfour Declaration.
If we look back a few months before the time of the Balfour Declaration we find an event of extreme value to Britain-America's entry into the war. What I suggest is that the Balfour Declaration was a reward to the Zionists for their part in having brought the United States into the First World War at Britain's side.
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