On 31 October 1917, Chaim Weizmann became president of the
British Zionist Federation; he worked with Arthur Balfour to obtain the
Balfour Declaration. A founder of so-called
Synthetic Zionism, Weizmann supported grass-roots colonization efforts as well as high-level diplomatic activity. He was generally associated with the centrist
General Zionists and later sided with neither
Labour Zionism on the left nor
Revisionist Zionism on the right. In 1917, he expressed his view of
Zionism in the following words, Weizmann's personality became an issue but Weizmann had an international profile unlike his colleagues or any other British Zionist. He was President of EZF Executive Council. He was also criticized by Harry Cohen. A London delegate raised a censure motion: that Weizmann refused to condemn the regiment. In August 1917, Weizmann quit both EZF and ZPC which he had founded with his friends. Leon Simon asked Weizmann not to "give up the struggle". At the meeting on 4 September 1917, he faced some fanatical opposition. But letters of support "sobering down" opposition, and a letter from his old friend Ginzberg "a great number of people regard you as something of a symbol of Zionism". Zionists linked Sokolow and Weizmann to Sykes. Sacher tried to get the Foreign Secretary to redraft a statement rejecting Zionism. The irony was not lost accusing the government of anti-semitism.
Edwin Montagu opposed it, but
Herbert Samuel and
David Lloyd George favoured Zionism. Montagu did not regard Palestine as a "fit place for them to live". Montagu believed that it would let down assimilationists and the ideals of British Liberalism. The Memorandum was not supposed to accentuate the prejudice of mentioning 'home of the Jewish people'. Weizmann was a key holder at the Ministry of Supply by late 1917. By 1918 Weizmann was accused of combating the idea of a separate peace with Ottoman Empire. He considered such a peace at odds with Zionist interests. He was even accused of "possibly prolonging the war". At the War Cabinet meeting of 4 October, chaired by Lloyd George and with Balfour present,
Lord Curzon also opposed this "barren and desolate" place as a home for Jews. In a third memo Montagu labelled Weizmann a "religious fanatic". Montagu believed in assimilation and saw his principles being swept from under by the new policy stance. Montagu, a
British Jew, had learnt debating skills as India Secretary, and Liberalism from Asquith, who also opposed Zionism. , 1918 All the memos from Zionists, non-Zionists, and Curzon were all-in by a third meeting convened on Wednesday, 31 October 1917. The War Cabinet had dealt an "irreparable blow to Jewish Britons", wrote Montagu. Curzon's memo was mainly concerned by the non-Jews in Palestine to secure their civil rights. Worldwide there were 12 million Jews, and about in Palestine by 1932. Cabinet ministers were worried about Germany playing the Zionist card. If the Germans were in control, it would hasten support for Ottoman Empire, and collapse of Kerensky's government. Curzon went on towards an advanced Imperial view: that since most Jews had Zionist views, it was as well to support these majority voices. "If we could make a declaration favourable to such an ideal we should be able to carry on extremely useful propaganda." Weizmann "was absolutely loyal to Great Britain". The Zionists had been approached by the Germans, Weizmann told
William Ormsby-Gore, but the British miscalculated the effects of immigration to Palestine and over-estimated German control over the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans were in no position to prevent movement. Sykes reported the Declaration to Weizmann with elation all round: he repeated "mazel tov" over and over. The Entente had fulfilled its commitment to both Sharif Husein and Chaim Weizmann. in Syria, 1918 Sykes stressed the Entente: "We are pledged to Zionism, Armenianism liberation, and Arabian independence". On 2 December, Zionists celebrated the Declaration at the Opera House; the news of the
Bolshevik Revolution, and withdrawal of Russian troops from the frontier war with Ottoman Empire, raised the pressure from Constantinople. On 11 December, Turkish armies were swept aside when
Edmund Allenby's troops entered Jerusalem. On 9 January 1918, all Turkish troops withdrew from the Hejaz for a bribe of $2 million to help pay Ottoman Empire's debts. Weizmann had seen peace with Ottoman Empire out of the question in July 1917. Lloyd George wanted a separate peace with Ottoman Empire to guarantee relations in the region secure. Weizmann had managed to gain the support of International Jewry in Britain, France and Italy. Schneer postulates that the British government desperate for any wartime advantage were prepared to offer any support among philo-Semites. It was to Weizmann a priority. Weizmann considered that the issuance of the Balfour Declaration was the greatest single achievement of the pre-1948 Zionists. He believed that the Balfour Declaration and the legislation that followed it, such as the (3 June 1922) Churchill White Paper and the
League of Nations Mandate for Palestine all represented an astonishing accomplishment for the Zionist movement. to his right) On 3 January 1919, Weizmann met
Hashemite Prince Faisal to sign the
Faisal-Weizmann Agreement attempting to establish the legitimate existence of the state of Israel. At the end of the month, the
Paris Peace Conference decided that the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire should be wholly separated and the newly conceived mandate-system applied to them. Weizmann stated at the conference that the Zionist objective was to "establish such a society in Palestine that Palestine shall be as Jewish as England is English, or America American." Shortly thereafter, both men made their statements to the conference. After 1920, he assumed leadership in the
World Zionist Organization, creating local branches in Berlin, and serving twice (1920–31, 1935–46) as president of the World Zionist Organization. Unrest amongst Arab antagonism to a Jewish presence in Palestine increased, erupting into riots. Weizmann remained loyal to Britain, tried to shift the blame onto dark forces. The French were commonly blamed for discontent, as scapegoats for Imperial liberalism. Zionists began to believe racism existed within the administration, which remained inadequately policed. In 1921, Weizmann went along with
Albert Einstein for a fundraiser to establish the
Hebrew University in
Jerusalem and support the
Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. At this time, simmering differences over competing European and American visions of Zionism, and its funding of development versus political activities, caused Weizmann to clash with
Louis Brandeis. In 1921 Weizmann played an important role in supporting
Pinhas Rutenberg's successful bid to the British for an exclusive electric concession for Palestine, in spite of bitter personal and principled disputes between the two figures. During the war years, Brandeis headed the precursor of the
Zionist Organization of America, leading fund-raising for Jews trapped in Europe and Palestine. In early October 1914, the arrived in
Jaffa Harbor with money and supplies provided by
Jacob Schiff, the
American Jewish Committee, and the Provisional Executive Committee for General Zionist Affairs, then acting for the WZO, which had been rendered impotent by the war. Although Weizmann retained Zionist leadership, the clash led to a departure from Louis Brandeis's movement. By 1929, there were about members remaining in the ZOA, a massive decline from the high of reached during the peak Brandeis years. In summer 1930, these two factions and visions of Zionism, would come to a compromise largely on Brandeis's terms, with a restructured leadership for the ZOA. An American view is that Weizmann persuaded the British cabinet to support Zionism by presenting the benefits of having a presence in Palestine in preference to the French. Imperial interests on the
Suez Canal as well as sympathy after
the Holocaust were important factors for British support. Weizmann wrote in 1914:Should Palestine fall within the British sphere of influence, and should Britain encourage a Jewish settlement there, as a British dependency, we could have in 20 to 30 years a million Jews out there ... they would ... form a very effective guard for the Suez Canal.
Jewish immigration to Palestine , Jerusalem, 1933. Also pictured are
Haim Arlosoroff (sitting, center),
Moshe Shertok (Sharett) (standing, right), and
Yitzhak Ben-Zvi (standing, to Shertok's right). Jewish immigration was consciously limited by the British administration. Weizmann agreed with the policy but was afraid of the rise of the Nazis. From 1933, there were year-on-year leaps in mass immigration by 50%. Prime Minister
Ramsay MacDonald's attempted reassurance on economic grounds in a
white paper did little to stabilize Arab-Israeli relations. In 1936 and early 1937, Weizmann addressed the
Peel Commission (set up by the returning Conservative Prime Minister
Stanley Baldwin), whose job it was to consider the working of the
British Mandate of Palestine. He insisted that the mandate authorities had not driven home to the Palestinian population that the terms of the mandate would be implemented, using an analogy from another part of the British Empire: I think it was in Bombay recently, that there had been trouble and the Moslems had been flogged. I am not advocating flogging, but what is the difference between a Moslem in Palestine and a Moslem in Bombay? There they flog them, and here they save their faces. This, interpreted in terms of Moslem mentality, means: "The British are weak; we shall succeed if we make ourselves sufficiently unpleasant. We shall succeed in throwing the Jews into the Mediterranean." On 25 November 1936, testifying before the Peel Commission, Weizmann said that there were in Europe Jews "for whom the world is divided into places where they cannot live and places where they cannot enter." Weizmann made very clear in his autobiography that the failure of the international Zionist movement (between the wars) to encourage all Jews to act decisively and efficiently in great enough numbers to migrate to the Jerusalem area was the real cause for the call for a Partition deal. A deal on partition was first formally mentioned in 1936 but not finally implemented until 1948. Again, Weizmann blamed the Zionist movement for not being adequate during the best years of the British Mandate. Ironically, in 1936
Ze'ev Jabotinsky prepared the so-called "evacuation plan", which called for the evacuation of 1.5 million Jews from
Poland, the
Baltic states,
Nazi Germany,
Hungary and
Romania to Palestine over the span of next ten years. The plan was first proposed on 8 September 1936 in the conservative Polish newspaper '''', the day after Jabotinsky organized a conference where more details of the plan were laid out; the emigration would take 10 years and would include Jews from Poland, with between age of 20–39 leaving the country each year. Jabotinsky stated that his goal was to reduce Jewish population in the countries involved to levels that would make them uninterested in its further reduction. The same year, he toured Eastern Europe, meeting with the Polish Foreign Minister, Colonel
Józef Beck; the Regent of
Hungary, Admiral
Miklós Horthy; and Prime Minister
Gheorghe Tătărescu of
Romania to discuss the evacuation plan. The plan gained the approval of all three governments, but caused considerable controversy within the
Jewish community of Poland, on the grounds that it played into the hands of anti-Semites. In particular, the fact that the 'evacuation plan' had the approval of the Polish government was taken by many Polish Jews as indicating Jabotinsky had gained the endorsement of what they considered to be the wrong people. The evacuation of
Jewish communities in Poland,
Hungary and
Romania was to take place over a ten-year period. However, the British government vetoed it, and the
World Zionist Organization's chairman, Chaim Weizmann, dismissed it. Weizmann considered himself, not Ben-Gurion, the political heir to
Theodor Herzl. Herzl's only grandchild and descendant was
Stephen Norman (born Stephan Theodor Neumann, 1918–1946). Dr.
H. Rosenblum, the editor of
Haboker, a Tel Aviv daily that later became
Yediot Aharonot, noted in late 1945 that Dr. Weizmann deeply resented the sudden intrusion and reception of Norman when he arrived in Britain. Norman spoke to the Zionist conference in London. Haboker reported, "Something similar happened at the Zionist conference in London. The chairman suddenly announced to the meeting that in the hall there was Herzl's grandson who wanted to say a few words. The introduction was made in an absolutely dry and official way. It was felt that the chairman looked for—and found—some stylistic formula which would satisfy the visitor without appearing too cordial to anybody among the audience. In spite of that there was a great thrill in the hall when Norman mounted on the platform of the presidium. At that moment, Dr. Weizmann turned his back on the speaker and remained in this bodily and mental attitude until the guest had finished his speech." The 1945 article went on to note that Norman was snubbed by Weizmann and by some in Israel during his visit because of ego, jealousy, vanity and their own personal ambitions. Brodetsky was Chaim Weizmann's principal ally and supporter in Britain. Weizmann secured for Norman a desirable but minor position with the British Economic and Scientific Mission in Washington, D.C.
Second World War On 29 August 1939, Weizmann sent a letter to
Neville Chamberlain, stating in part: "I wish to confirm in the most explicit manner the declarations which I and my colleagues have made during the last month and especially in the last week: that the Jews stand by Great Britain and will fight on the side of the democracies." The letter gave rise to a
conspiracy theory, promoted in
Nazi propaganda, that he had made a
"Jewish declaration of war" against Germany. in the garden of Weizmann's home at Tapley Park in the English village of
Instow, north
Devon, 1942 At the outbreak of war in Europe in 1939, Weizmann was appointed as an honorary adviser to the British
Ministry of Supply, using his extensive political expertise in the management of provisioning and supplies throughout the duration of the conflict. He was frequently asked to advise the cabinet and also brief the Prime Minister. Weizmann's efforts to integrate Jews from Palestine in the war against Germany resulted in the creation of the
Jewish Brigade of the British Army which fought mainly in the Italian front. After the war, he grew embittered by the rise of violence in Palestine and by the terrorist tendencies amongst followers of the Revisionist fraction. His influence within the Zionist movement decreased, yet he remained overwhelmingly influential outside of Mandate Palestine. In 1942, Weizmann was invited by President
Franklin D. Roosevelt to work on the problem of synthetic rubber. Weizmann proposed to produce butyl alcohol from maize, then convert it to butylene and further to butadiene, which is a basis for rubber. According to his memoirs, these proposals were barred by the oil companies.
The Holocaust In 1939, a conference was established at
St James's Palace when the government drew up the May 1939 White Paper which severely curtailed any spending in the Jewish Home Land. Yishuv was put back to the lowest priority. At the outbreak of war the
Jewish Agency pledged its support for the British war effort against Nazi Germany. They raised the Jewish Brigade into the British Army, which took years to come to fruition. It authenticated the news of the Holocaust reaching the allies. In May 1942, the Zionists met at
Biltmore Hotel in New York, US; a
convention at which Weizmann pressed for a policy of unrestricted immigration into Palestine. A Jewish Commonwealth needed to be established, and latterly Churchill revived his backing for this project. Weizmann met Churchill on 4 November 1944 to urgently discuss the future of Palestine. Churchill agreed that Partition was preferable for Israel over his White Paper. He also agreed that Israel should annex the
Negev desert, where no one was living. However, when
Lord Moyne, the British Governor of Palestine, had met Churchill a few days earlier, he was surprised that Churchill had changed his views in two years. On 6 November, Moyne was assassinated for his trenchant views on immigration; the immigration question was put on hold. In February 1943, the British government also rejected a plan to pay $3.5 million and just $50 per head to allow , mostly Romanian, Jews to be protected and evacuated that Weizmann had suggested to the Americans. In May 1944, the British detained
Joel Brand, a Jewish activist from Budapest, who wanted to evacuate 1 million Jews from Hungary on trucks, with tea, coffee, cocoa, and soap. In July 1944, Weizmann pleaded on Brand's behalf but to no avail.
Rezső Kasztner took over the direct negotiations with
Adolf Eichmann to release migrants, but they came to nothing. Weizmann also promoted a plan to bomb the death camps, but the British claimed that this was too risky, dangerous and unfeasible, due to technical difficulties. On 20 September 1945, Weizmann presented the first official documents to the British, USA, France, and Soviets, for the restitution of property, and indemnification. He demanded that all heirless Jewish property should be handed over as part of the reparations for the rehabilitation of Nazi victims. In his presidential statement at the last Zionist congress that he attended at Basel on 9 December 1946 he said: "Massada, for all its heroism, was a disaster in our history; It is not our purpose or our right to plunge to destruction in order to bequeath a legend of martyrdom to posterity; Zionism was to mark the end of our glorious deaths and the beginning of a new path leading to life." ==First president of Israel==