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Background Weizmann first met Faisal in June 1918, during the British advance from the South against the Ottoman Empire in World War I. As leader of an impromptu "Zionist Commission", Weizmann traveled to southern Transjordan for the meeting. The intended purpose was to forge an agreement between Faisal and the Zionist movement to support Jewish settlement in Palestine. The wishes of the Palestinian Arabs were to be ignored, and, indeed, both men seem to have held the Palestinian Arabs in considerable disdain. Weizmann had called them "treacherous", "arrogant", "uneducated", and "greedy" and had complained to the British that the system in Palestine did "not take into account the fact that there is a fundamental qualitative difference between Jew and Arab". After his meeting with Faisal, Weizmann reported that Faisal was "contemptuous of the Palestinian Arabs whom he doesn't even regard as Arabs". In preparation for the meeting, British diplomat Mark Sykes had written to Faisal about the Jewish people “...this race, despised and weak, is universal and all powerful and cannot be put down.” Under such circumstances, the secret British communication contended, Faisal was well advised to cultivate the Zionist movement as a powerful ally rather than to oppose it. In the event, Weizmann and Faisal established an informal agreement under which Faisal would support dense Jewish settlement in Palestine while the Zionist movement would assist in the development of the vast Arab nation that Faisal hoped to establish. Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca, and his son Faisal both endorsed and extolled the Balfour Declaration. Two months after receiving note of the declaration, Hussein wrote in Mecca's Al Qibla, 23 March 1918: The resources of the country are still virgin soil and will be developed by the Jewish immigrants. One of the most amazing things until recent times was that the Palestinian used to leave his country, wandering over the high seas in every direction. His native soil could not retain a hold on him.... At the same time, we have seen the Jews from foreign countries streaming to Palestine from Russia, Germany, Austria, Spain, and America. The cause of causes could not escape those who had a gift of deeper insight. They knew that the country was for its original sons abna'ihi-l-asliyin, for all their differences, a sacred and beloved homeland. The return of these exiles jaliya to their homeland will prove materially and spiritually an experimental school for their brethren who are with them in the fields, factories, trades and all things connected to the land." Weizmann and Faisal met again later in 1918 in London and soon afterwards at the Paris peace conference. On January 3, 1919, they signed the written agreement which is known by their names, see Paris Peace Conference, 1919. Weizmann signed the agreement on behalf of the Zionist Organization, while Faisal signed on behalf of the Arab Kingdom of Hedjaz. Prior to signing the agreement, Faisal has stated: The two main branches of the Semitic family, Arabs and Jews, understand one another, and I hope that as a result of interchange of ideas at the Peace Conference, which will be guided by ideals of self-determination and nationality, each nation will make definite progress towards the realization of its aspirations. Arabs are not jealous of Zionist Jews, and intend to give them fair play and the Zionist Jews have assured the Nationalist Arabs of their intention to see that they too have fair play in their respective areas. Turkish intrigue in Palestine has raised jealousy between the Jewish colonists and the local peasants, but the mutual understanding of the aims of Arabs and Jews will at once clear away the last trace of this former bitterness, which, indeed, had already practically disappeared before the war by the work of the Arab Secret Revolutionary Committee, which in Syria and elsewhere laid the foundation of the Arab military successes of the past two years. What were the respective areas ? In a letter to American Zionist Felix Frankfurter (3 March 1919) Faisal wrote
The proposal submitted by the Zionist movement to the Peace Conference was as follows: The boundaries of Palestine shall follow the general lines set out below: Starting on the North al a point on the Mediterranean Sea in the vicinity South of Sidon and following the watersheds of the foothills of the Lebanon as far as Jisr el Karaon, thence to El Bire following the dividing line between the two basins of the Wadi El Korn and the Wadi Et Teim thence in a southerly direction following the dividing line between the Eastern and Western slopes of the Hermon, to the vicinity West of Beit Jenn, thence Eastward following the northern watersheds of the Nahr Mughaniye close to and west of the Hedjaz Railway. In the East a line close to and West of the Hedjaz Railway terminating in the Gulf of Akaba. In the South a frontier to be agreed upon with the Egyptian Government. In the West the Mediterranean Sea. The details of the delimitations, or any necessary adjustments of detail, shall be settled by a Special Commission on which there shall be Jewish representation. Commenting on the proposal Chaim Weizmann, President of the English Zionist Federation, noted, "I should like to point out that we do not aspire to found a Zionist State. What we want is a country in which all nations and all creeds shall have equal rights and equal tolerance. We cannot hope to rule a country in which only one-seventh of the population are at present Jews." When asked about this quotation in 1947, Weizmann did not recall ever saying it, and clarified that at any case "That is quite right. We did not want to speak of a State then. We spoke of a National Home. But the characteristic of the thing, whether it is a National Home or whether it is a State, remains the same. We think that in the Jewish State all peoples will live in amity and freedom".* Faisal conditioned his acceptance on the fulfillment of British wartime promises to the Arabs, who had hoped for independence in a vast part of the Ottoman Empire. He appended to the typed document a hand-written statement: "Provided the Arabs obtain their independence as demanded in my forthcoming Memorandum dated the 4th of January, 1919, to the Foreign Office of the Government of Great Britain, I shall concur in the above articles. But if the slightest modification or departure were to be made regarding our demands, I shall not be then bound by a single word of the present Agreement which shall be deemed void and of no account or validity, and I shall not be answerable in any way whatsoever." The Faisal-Weizmann agreement survived only a few months. The outcome of the peace conference itself did not provide the vast Arab state that Faisal desired mainly because the British and French had struck their own secret Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 dividing the Middle East between their own spheres of influence, and soon Faisal began to express doubts about cooperation with the Zionist movement. After Faisal was expelled from Syria and given Iraq, he contended that the conditions he appended were not fulfilled and therefore the treaty can't be carried out. Weizmann continued to maintain that the treaty was still binding. In 1947 Weizmann explained
Arab-Israeli peace diplomacy and treaties Footnote | ||||||||||
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