FEISAL-FRANKFURTER CORRESPONDENCE DELEGATION HEDJAZIENNE, Paris, March 3, 1919. DEAR MR. FRANKFURTER: I want to take this opportunity of my first contact with American Zionists to tell you what I have often been able to say to Dr. Weizmann in Arabia and Europe. We feel that the Arabs and Jews are cousins in race, having suffered similar oppressions at the hands of powers stronger than themselves, and by a happy coincidence have been able to take the first step towards the attainment of their national ideals together. We Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with the deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement. Our deputation here in Paris is fully acquainted with the proposals submitted yesterday by the Zionist Organization to the Peace Conference, and we regard them as moderate and proper. We will do our best, in so far as we are concerned, to help them through: we will wish the Jews a most hearty welcome home. With the chiefs of your movement, especially with Dr. Weizmann, we have had and continue to have the closest relations. He has been a great helper of our cause, and I hope the Arabs may soon be in a position to make the Jews some return for their kindness. We are working together for a reformed and revived Near East, and our two movements complete one another. The Jewish movement is national and not imperialist. Our movement is national and not imperialist, and there is room in Syria for us both. Indeed I think that neither can be a real success without the other. People less informed and less responsible than our leaders and yours, ignoring the need for cooperation of the Arabs and Zionists have been trying to exploit the local difficulties that must necessarily arise in Palestine in the early stages of our movements. Some of them have, I am afraid, misrepresented your aims to the Arab peasantry, and our aims to the Jewish peasantry, with the result that interested parties have been able to make capital out of what they call our diff erences. I wish to give you my firm conviction that these differences are not on questions of principle, but on matters of detail such as must inevitably occur in every contact of neighbouring peoples, and as are easily adjusted by mutual goodwill. Indeed nearly all of them will disappear with fuller knowledge. I look forward, and my people with me look forward, to a future in which we will help you and you will help us, so that the countries in which we are mutually interested may once again take their places in the community of civilised peoples of the world. Believe me, Yours sincerely, ROYAL HIGHNESS: (Sgd.) FEISAL. 5TH MARCH, 1919. Allow me, on behalf of the Zionist Organisation, to acknowledge your recent letter with deep appreciation. Those of us who come from the United States have already been gratified by the friendly relations and the active cooperation maintained between you and the Zionist leaders, particularly Dr. Weizmann. We knew it could not be otherwise; we knew that the aspirations of the Arab and the Jewish peoples were parallel, that each aspired to reestablish its nationality in its own homeland, each making its own distinctive contribution to civilisation, each seeking its own peaceful mofe of life. The Zionist leaders and the Jewish people for whom they speak have watched with satisfaction the spiritual vigour of the Arab movement. Themselves seeking justice, they are anxious that the just national aims of the Arab people be confirmed and safeguarded by the Peace Conference. We knew from your acts and your past utterances that the Zionist movementin other words the national aims of the Jewish people had your support and the support of the Arab people for whom you speak. These aims are now before the Peace Conference as definite proposals by the Zionist Organisation. We are happy indeed that you consider these proposals "moderate and proper," and that we have in you a staunch supporter for their realisation. For both the Arab and the Jewish peoples there are difficulties ahead-difficulties that challenge the united statesmanship of Arab and Jewish leaders. For it is no easy task to rebuild two great civilisations that have been suffering oppression and misrule for centuries. We each have our difficulties we shall work out as friends, friends who are animated by similar purposes, seeking a free and full development for the two neighbouring peoples. The Arabs and Jews are neighbours in territory; we cannot but live side by side as friends. Very respectfully, His Royal Highness Prince Feisal. (Sgd.) FELIX FRANKFURTER. BRITISH GOVERNMENT PRONOUNCEMENTS No formal Treaty was concluded between His Maejsty's Government and the King of the Hejaz in 1915. His Majesty's Government, however, gave certain undertakings to the Arabs through King Hussein to support their efforts to gain their independence subject to reservations as to British and French interests and as to boundaries. These undertakings were embodied in a long and inconclusive correspondence; and on certain points no specific agreement was reached. (Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Harmsworth), House of Commons, October 24, 1921. (H. C. Official Report, October 24, 1921, col.461.) It is not the case, as has been represented by the Arab Delegation, that during the War His Majesty's Government gave an undertaking that an independent national government should be at once established in Palestine. This representation mainly rests upon a letter dated the 24th October, 1915, from Sir Henry McMahon, then His Majesty's High Commissioner in Egypt, to the Sherif of Mecca, now King Hussein of the Kingdom of the Hejaz. That letter is quoted as conveying the promise to the Sherif of Mecca to recognise and support the independence of the Arabs within the territories proposed by him. But this promise was given subject to a reservation made in the same letter, which excluded from its scope, among other territories, the portions of Syria lying to the west of the district of Damascus. This reservation has always been regarded by His Majesty's Government as covering the Vilayet of Beirut and the independent Sanjak of Jerusalem. The whole of Palestine West of the Jordan was thus excluded from Sir H. McMahon's pledge. (Statement of British Policy in Palestine, June 3, 1922 (Cmd. 1700, 1922, p. 20.) No pledges were made to the Palestine Arabs in 1915. An undertaking was given to the Sherif of Mecca that His Majesty's Government would recognise and support the independence of the Arabs within certain territorial limits, which specifically excluded the districts of Mersina and Alexandretta, and the portions of Syria lying to the west of the districts of Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo. It was also stipulated that the undertaking applied only to those portions of the territories concerned in which Great Britain was free to act without detriment to the interests of her Allies. His Majesty's Government have always regarded, and continue to regard Palestine as excluded by these provisos from the scope of their undertaking. This is clear from the fact, to which the hon. Member refers, that in the following year they concluded an agreement with the French and Russian Governments under which Palestine was to receive special treatment. So far as I am aware, the first suggestion that Palestine was included in the area within which His Majesty's Government promised to recognise and support the independence of the Arabs was made by the Emir Feisal, now King of Iraq, at a conversation held in the Foreign Office on 20th January, 1921, more than five years after the conclusion of the correspondence on which the claim was based. On that occasion the point of view of His Majesty's Government was explained to the Emir, who expressed himself as prepared to accept the statement that it had been the intention of His Majesty's Government to exclude Palestine. When I assumed responsibility for Middle Eastern Affairs I went carefully into the correspondence referred to, and my reading of it is the same as that of the Foreign Office, as was recently stated in the Declaration of British Policy in Palestine, which has been published and laid before the House. I am quite satisfied that it was as fully the intention of His Majesty's Government to exclude Palestine from the area of Arab independence as it was to exclude the more northern coastal tracts of Syria. (Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Winston Churchill), House of Commons, July 11, 1922 (H. C. Official Report, July 11, 1922, col. 1032/34).) I have not been content merely to accept those statements as they appeared, but since I have been at the Colonial Office I have, to the best of my ability and power, most carefully investigated the subject for myself, and I certainly see no reason, on broad grounds, to dissent from the interpretation which the late Government has placed upon the promises. Whether they were expressed in the best terms or not, it is perhaps not for me to say, but undoubtedly there never was any intention, when the pledge was given, to recognise the independence of the Arabs so as to include Palestine. I think that is perfectly clear, and in my own mind I am certain of it. Although the terms may not have been expressed in the clearest possible language, I think it was the intention of both Sir H. McMahon and the Government at the time, when those pledges were given, that Palestine should not be included. (Secretary of State for the Colonies (Duke of Devonshire), House of Lords, March 1, 1923. (H. L. Official Report, 1.3.1923, col. 233.)) I served in 1916 in the Arab Bureau in Cairo on Sir Henry McMahon's staff, and I wish myself to testify to the fact that it never was in the mind of anyone on that staff that Palestine west of the Jordan was in the area within which the British Government then undertook to further the cause of Arab independence. And, after all, the whole sequel proves the case. Immediately after the Arab revolt and in successive months, the then British Government, before the right hon. gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) became Prime Minister, was advised in these matters largely by the late Sir Mark Sykes, and immediately after the McMahon correspondence and the outbreak of the revolt in the Hedjaz he was instructed by the then Government to get into touch with the French and other Allied Governments in regard to the future of that part of the world. Negotiations were long, with the results that England and France, France then having claimed the whole of Palestine, acceded to an arrangement which is set out very fully on page 21 of the Report [of the Royal Commission for Palestine]. * * * When the preliminary negotiations took place leading up to the Balfour Declaration-and it was at least a year after the first adumbration of a desire on the part of the Allied Governments to make some approach to the Jewish people had first been thought of-I remember myself serving in the Arab Bureau helping to edit a thing called the "Arab Bulletin" in the autumn of 1916, putting into that "Bulletin" information regarding Jewish colonies and Jewish aspirations in Palestine; and all through the early days of 1917 His Majesty's Government and the other Governments were becoming increasingly aware of this factor in the Near Eastern problem, and the Balfour Declaration, which was not issued until November, 1917, was the result of prolonged weeks of controversy—I say that advisedly-in this country, because some people put forward views vigorously opposed to it, after negotiations with France and Italy, and after, as the Commission bring out for the first time, President Wilson was consulted as to its precise terms. It was a most deliberate act. * * * It was not only Sir Mark Sykes but others brought to the attention of the Government the fact that undertakings of a general character had been given to the Arabs, and the McMahon correspondence was fully in the mind of His Majesty's and the Allied Governments when the Balfour Declaration was made. I say it was opposed, but let me make it clear that the Cabinet as a whole were absolutely determined, and the idea that this was a particular nostrum of Lord Balfour or any other individual is quite out of the question. * * * This further fact should be known, that the draft as originally put up by Lord Balfour was not the final draft approved by the War Cabinet. The particular draft assented to by the War Cabinet, and afterwards by the Allied Governments, and by the United States, expressed in the Resolution of Congress and finally embodied in the Mandate, happens to have been drafted by Lord Milner. The actual final draft had to be issued in the name of the Foreign Secretary, but the actual draftsman was Lord Milner. I want it clearly and finally understood that His Majesty's Government, neither then nor now, can or will admit that Palestine west of the Jordan was included in the pledge given to the Sherif, and that they have always in mind that special considerations must obtain in regard to the future government of the Holy Land. The unique character of Palestine was recognised by the Arab Delegates to the Peace Conference. It is recognised all over the world. (Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Ormsby-Gore, House of Commons, July 21, 1937 (H. C. Official Report, July 21, 1937, col. 2249/50).) STATEMENTS BY BRITISH NEGOTIATORS SIR HENRY MCMAHON Sir: Many references have been made in the Palestine Royal Commission Report and in the course of the recent debates in both Houses of Parliament to the "McMahon Pledge," especially to that portion of the pledge which concerns Palestine and of which one interpretation has been claimed by the Jews and another by the Arabs. It has been suggested to me that continued silence on the part of the giver of that pledge may itself be misunderstood. I feel, therefore, called upon to make some statement on the subject, but I will confine myself in doing so to the point now at issue-i. e., whether that portion of Syria now known as Palestine was or was not intended to be included in the territories in which the independence of the Arabs was guaranteed in my pledge. I feel it my duty to state, and I do so definitely and emphatically, that it was not intended by me in giving this pledge to King Hussein to include Palestine in the area in which Arab independence was promised. I also had every reason to believe at the time that the fact that Palestine was not included in my pledge was well understood by King Hussein. Yours faithfully, 5, Wilton Place S.W. 1., July 22. A. HENRY MCMAHON. SIR GILBERT CLAYTON, THEN CHIEF SECRETARY OF THE PALESTINE GOVERNMENT, IN A NOTE TO THE HIGH COMMISSIONER, SIR HERBERT SAMUEL, 12TH April, 1923 I was in daily touch with Sir Henry McMahon throughout the negotiations with King Hussein, and made the preliminary drafts of all the letters. I can bear out the statement that it was never the intention that Palestine should be included in the general pledge given to the Sherif. The introductory words of Sir Henry's letter were thought at the time, perhaps erroneously, clearly to cover the point. It was, I think, obvious that the peculiar interests involved in Palestine precluded any definite pledges in regard to its future at so early a stage. (Quoted by Lord Samuel, House of Lords, 20th July, 1937. (H. L. Official Report, July 20, 1937, col. 629.)) COLONEL C. E. VICKERY Sir: Since it has been decided to publish the letter addressed by Sir Henry McMahon to Sherif Hussein in 1915 it may be of interest to record my impressions of the interview that I had with the late King Hussein in 1920 under instructions from Cairo to read personally the original copy of this letter held by the King. My information was that no copy existed at Cairo, but as to that I am not in a position to say whether this was so or not. It happened that the King had arrived at Jeddah the day before I received my instructions, and I asked for my audience, which was at once accorded. It was not my custom to take an interpreter with me for these audiences and I was received by the King alone on the top storey of his Jeddah house. For an hour or more I listened to the bitter complaints of King Hussein of the way he had been treated in defiance of pledged and written word; again and again I brought the discussion round to the 1915 letter and tried to provoke the Sherif into showing it to me. It must have been after midday when I had been with him over three hours, for on looking down from my seat in the bow window there was no shadow in the street and the sun was suspended like some sword over the city, that the King suddenly clapped his hands and bade the slave who came in to bring his portfolio. This was done and unlocked by Hussein himself; he fumbled through some papers and finally threw one at me. "Read yourself, Ó light of my eye." he said. I read the letter through very slowly; it was not written in very scholarly Arabic and had no English translation in the margin, and it was quite evident that Palestine was not included in the proposals to the King. I can say most definitely that the whole of the King's demands were centred round Syria and only round Syria. Time after time he referred to that vineyard, to the exclusion of any other claim or interest. He stated most emphatically that he did not concern himself at all with Palestine and had no desire to have suzerainty over it for himself or his successors. He did, however, frequently and vehemently, point out to me the following excerpt of the letter, and as it is to be published, the accuracy of my memory can be established. "Bil niabah_el hakumah el britannieh el azimah ana aqbil bi kull motalibkum." "On behalf of the great British Government I accept all your demands." This may have been worded unfortunately, for there was no doubt in my mind that it referred to the requests for munitions of war which he demanded with great frequency. Nothing would persuade the Sherif Hussein that it did not refer to everything that he had asked for in the acquisition of territories to form the Arabian Empire which inspired every waking moment of his life. So many are the historians of the Arab revolt and so many are the stories of events which one person had from another who knew a third who was present, that I venture to send you this account of an interview at which there were only two people present and one has long since passed to that paradise that the great prophet promised to the faithful. I am, Sir, Your obedient servant. Whorlton Grange, Barnard Castle, Co. Durham. (Letter to The Times, February 21, 1939.) T. E. LAWRENCE C. E. VICKERY. Draft Preface, dated 18th November, 1922, to an abridgment (not published) of the Oxford Text of Seven Pillars of Wisdom. The book dates itself to 1919, when powerful elements in the British Government were seeking to evade their war-time obligations to the Arabs. That stage ended in March 1921, when Mr. Winston Churchill took charge of the Middle East. He set honesty before expediency in order to fulfil our promises in the letter and in the spirit. He executed the whole McMahon undertaking (called a treaty by some who have not seen it) for Palestine, for Trans-Jordania, and for Arabia. In Mesopotamia he went far beyond its provisions, giving to the Arabs more, and reserving for us much less, than Sir Henry McMahon had thought fit. In the affairs of French Syria he was not able to interfere, and the Sherif of Mecca can fairly complain that the settlement there is not yet in accordance with the Anglo-French agreement of 1916, or with our word to him. I say "not yet" advisedly, since the McMahon proposals (being based on racial and economic reasons) were likely to have imposed themselves eventually, even if Mr. Churchill's progressive British military withdrawal from Mesopotamia had not come to prejudge the future of all the Arab areas. I do not wish to publish secret documents, nor to make long explanations: but must put on record my conviction that England is out of the Arab affair with clean hands. Some Arab advocates (the most vociferous joined our ranks after the Armistice) have rejected my judgment on this point. Like a tedious Pensioner I showed them my wounds (over sixty I have, each scar evidence of a pain incurred in Arab service) as proof I had worked sincerely on their side. They found me out-of-date: and I was happy to withdraw from a political milieu which had never been congenial. (The Letters of T. E. Lawrence. Edited by D. Garnett. Cape, 1938 p. 345.) It is my deliberate opinion that the Winston Churchill settlement of 1921-1922 (in which I shared) honourably fulfils the whole of the promises we made to the Arabs, insofar as the so-called British spheres are concerned. (From a letter to Professor William Yale, dated October 22, 1929. The Letters of T. E. Lawrence, p. 671.) Mr. Winston Churchill was entrusted by our harassed Cabinet with the settlement of the Middle East; and in a few weeks, at his conference in Cairo, he made straight all the tangle, finding solutions, fulfilling (I think) our promises in letter and spirit (where humanly possible) without sacrificing any interest of our Empire or any interest of the people concerned. So we were quit of the war-time Eastern adventure, with clean hands, but three years too late to earn the gratitude which peoples, if not states, can pay. (Footnote to p. 276 of Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1935).) (Documents submitted for the record by Dr. A. H. Silver: (1) Statements of the Emir Feisal, leader of the Arab delegation at the Peace Conference at Paris in 1919, excluding Palestine from the Arab domain and agreeing to cooperate with the Zionists for the establishment of a Jewish Palestine. (2) Statements on progressing Palestine since |