“Churchill, a Zionist, was first to call for the creation of  Israel in 1905.” Where and when in 1905 did he say that? —G.H., New York City

A: Date undetermined

Churchill was probably a Zionist by 1905. Reader Gene Kopelson (Comments, below) notes Michael Makovsky’s evidence of young Winston’s early respect for Jews and many Jewish friends. This didn’t make him a Zionist per se, but he certainly had become one by the time of the Balfour Declaration in 1917. But I can find no public statement calling for an independent Israel until 1948. Until then he called for a “Jewish National Home.” With his characteristic optimism, he believed Arabs and Jews in Palestine could coexist. He pointed to the talent of the Arabs. And he praised the Jews for their horticulture and irrigation projects. Indeed in today’s Israel, Arabs comprise 20% of the population.

Cairo, 1921

Headed by Churchill in 1921, the Cairo Conference set the borders of the modern Middle East. There he opted for the Zionist idea, what he called a “Jewish National Home” within Britain’s Palestine Mandate, roughly coinciding with what is now Israel. The rest of the Palestine Mandate became the Arab state of Jordan. To a delegation of Palestinian Arabs in Jerusalem on 28 March 1921 Churchill declared for a Jewish National Home:

And where else could that be but in this land of Palestine, with which for more than 3000 years they have been intimately and profoundly associated? (Churchill by Himself, 175)

Churchill’s impressive achievement at that time was to convince two Arab potentates, King Abdullah in Jordan and King Feisal in Iraq, to tolerate a Jewish Homeland in their midst. This situation prevailed until Britain gave up the Palestine Mandate (without resolving the tensions) after World War II. In the 1948 war Israel secured independence.

A world war later…

…on 10 December 1948, Churchill spoke in the House of Commons. He regretted that Britain and the West had lost the opportunity to make a permanent settlement in the Middle East. This is the first admission that I can find that he accepted partition and an independent Zionist state:

I always had in my mind the hope that the whole question of the Middle East might have been settled on the largest scale on the morrow of victory and that an Arab Confederation, comprising three or four Arab States—Saudi-Arabia, Iraq, Transjordania, Syria and the Lebanon—however grouped, possibly united amongst themselves, and one Jewish State, might have been set up, which would have given peace and unity throughout the whole vast scene of the Middle East. As to whether so large a policy could have been carried into being I cannot be sure, but a settlement of the Palestine question on the basis of partition would certainly have been attempted, in the closest possible association with the United States and in personal contact with the President, by any Government of which I had been the head. But all this opportunity was lost. (Churchill by Himself, 176-77)

Hopes and regrets

Churchill supported the Zionist state, declaring in the House of Commons in 1949: “…the coming into being of a Jewish State in Palestine is an event in world history to be viewed in the perspective, not of a generation or a century, but in the perspective of a thousand, two thousand or even three thousand years.” (Churchill by Himself, 175)

But in 1951 he deplored British policies after the Second World War. These, he said, “led to the winding up of our affairs in Palestine in such a way as to earn almost in equal degree the hatred of the Arabs and the Jews.” (Churchill by Himself, 439).

Many who still have hope for Churchill’s optimism accept a “two state solution” for Palestine and Israel. But the two separate Palestinian entities, Gaza and the West Bank, subdivide the latter’s population. A solution with a chance of success might contemplate a shift of peoples to create a contiguous state. No one seems to want to grasp that nettle (which caused havoc in India in 1947). Even in 1948, Churchill recognized that it would not be easy.

Further reading

“How Winston Churchill Preserved the Dream of Israel, July 1922” (2018)

“Churchill and Lawrence of Arabia: A Conjunction of Two Bright Stars” (2020)

In “Jews in a Whisper” (New York Times Sunday Review), Mr. Roger Cohen argued that “Jews, with their history, cannot become the systematic oppressors of another people.” Fair enough, but we then read: “Winston Churchill, no less, argued in 1920 that Jews were part of a ‘worldwide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization and the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development.'”

“Zionism vs. Bolshevism”

This quotation is from Churchill’s article, “Zionism Versus Bolshevism,” in the 8 February 1920 Illustrated Sunday Herald. Some quote it to suggest that  Churchill was anti-Semite.

Churchill’s article was an attack on Bolshevism (“a sinister confederacy”) not Zionism, which Churchill mainly (but not always) supported. Churchill mentioned—accurately—that many Bolsheviks were Jews—and also gave a reason: They were people “reared up among the unhappy populations of countries where Jews are persecuted on account of their race.” He then named names:

Trotsky (Russia), Bela Kun (Hungary), Rosa Luxemburg (Germany ), and Emma Goldman (United States)…. this world-wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence and impossible equality, has been steady growing…. with the exception of Lenin, the majority of leading figures are Jews.

But context matters:

To quote these lines out of context from the rest of his article is to misrepresent Churchill. He added that figures like Trotsky comprised only a small portion of Jews—which he calls “the most formidable and the most remarkable race which has ever appeared in the world.”

Similarly to his later indictment of Nazi Germany, Churchill wrote: “Nothing is more wrong than to deny an individual, on account of race or origin, his right to be judged on his personal merits and conduct.” For example, Martin Luther King, Jr. dreamed of judging by those same standards. Above all, Jews in every country, Churchill continued,

identify themselves with that country, enter into its national life. A Jew living in England would say, “I am an Englishman practising the Jewish faith.” This is a worthy conception, and useful in the highest degree. And in our own Army Jewish soldiers have played a most distinguished part, some rising to the command of armies, others winning the Victoria Cross for valour.

Partial quotations taken out of context distort what Churchill wrote and thought. Above all, no one can seriously use his “Zionism Versus Bolshevism” essay to accuse Churchill of anti-Semitism. Writers need to go to the source, and get it right.

Enemies and Extremists

Mr. Cohen also adds a point given him by a London professor:

A century ago, during the Sidney Street siege of 1911, it was the Jews of London’s East End who, cast as Bolsheviks, were said to be “alien extremists.’’

The Sidney Street siege was attended and conducted in part by Churchill, then Home Secretary.  I can find no contemporary reports emphasizing at the time that the Sidney Street gang were Jews. Articles mentioned “anarchists” and “Latvians,” though only one had a possible Latvian name. They were indeed Russians and Latvia was a Russian province at that time.

Bibliographic Note

“Zionism Versus Bolshevism” as originally published in 1920 contained some egregious typos and errors. The Collected Essays of Sir Winston Churchill (1975) contains a corrected text. Bibliographer Ronald I. Cohen compared the two texts with the original errors in brackets. A copy is available by email from rlangworth@hillsdale.edu.

Questions and Answers (continued from Part 3)

From Senator Bob Packwood (who recalls shelling peas with you on a pleasant former occasion): Everybody asks what Churchill’s position would be today on the Middle East. It appears that he wanted to do right by everybody—guarantee the Jews a homeland but respect the rights of the Arabs. If that view of his is correct. would he be something closer to a pro-Zionist today or a supporter of the PLO? Did Churchill personally support The United Nations partition of Palestine in the 1940s?

Palestine and Israel

Churchill knew the Palestine Mandate (which in 1921 comprised Jordan as well as Israel) posed difficult demographic questions. Yet he was an eternal optimist, less cynical than most. He actually believed, in 1921, that Jews and Arabs could coexist for mutual benefit. That’s why he spoke then of a Jewish homeland, but not a Jewish state. But he did become resigned to the partition, and later the state.

Faced with intransigence, as we have been with the PLO, he always looked for ways to go around the problem—thus the Dardanelles to bypass the stalemate on the western front. But he tended not  to support thugs. So I think he would try to go round the PLO by sponsoring Arab treaties of peace with Israel. It is ironic that two U.S. presidents who probably don’t agree on anything else did this successfully: Jimmy Carter in 1978, Donald Trump in 2020.

Here’s what Churchill said in 1958, long after he’d left office:

The Middle East is one of the hardest-hearted areas in the world. It has always been fought over, and peace has only reigned when a major power has established firm influence and shown that it would maintain its will. Your friends must be supported with every vigour and if necessary they must be avenged. Force, or perhaps force and bribery, are the only things that will be respected. It is very sad, but we had all better recognise it. At present our friendship is not valued, and our enmity is not feared.

100 years on?

From Andrew Roberts (who needs no further introduction): Do you think the statue of Winston Churchill will be standing in Parliament Square in 100 years’ time?

Trust Andrew to toss me a spanner! I don’t even know if Parliament will be standing in 100 years’ time. After all, Orwell made London the capital of Oceania in “1984,” remember?

The job of Orwell’s hero, Winston Smith (we know where he got that name) was constantly to rewrite history to suit the party line. Everything proscribed by Big Brother was put into something called the Memory Hole and never heard of again. Statues too, I suppose. The best we can hope for is what Churchill said in 1954:

For myself I am an optimist—it does not seem to be much use being anything else—and I cannot believe that the human race will not find its way through the problems that confront it, although they are separated by a measureless gulf from any they have known before….

If he proves right, Parliament and the statue will endure.

Churchill vs. the Appeasers

Reading Britain At Bay, by Alan Allport, I was struck by just how much hung in the balance early in the war. What personality traits did Churchill possess that made him able to rally a nation and lead so effectively? How were they shaped during his life and how did he draw on them? How do those traits contrast with those of Mr. Chamberlain, whom Allport characterizes as vain, boring, spiteful, friendless, and lacking intellectual curiosity?

There’s a good review of Allport by Professor Raymond Callahan on our website. We also offer an annotated bibliography of works about Churchill. There are now over 1150….18 in 2020 alone.

You have to remember that Chamberlain and many of the appeasers, like Stanley Baldwin, started as businessmen. They had no experience of war, except that it interfered with business. Andrew Roberts makes this point. Hardly any leading appeasers—Chamberlain, Baldwin, Sam Hoare, Horace Wilson, fought in the First World War. (Halifax, who fought with distinction, was the chief exception.) Yet all the leading advocates for defying Hitler were veterans—Churchill, Eden, Macmillan, Louis Spears, Roger Keyes, Alfred Duff Cooper.

Ask yourself why that was. I think those who had fought knew what war would be like. So they wanted to stop Hitler before it came to that. The appeasers thought they could make deals with him, like any other businessman.

When war did come, it required someone with will to see it through. Churchill had that quality. Even Baldwin knew it. I’ll prevent war by accommodating Hitler, he thought, or pit him against the Russians. Baldwin had no place for Churchill in his cabinet. But he also said—and this is a direct quote: “Anything [Winston] undertakes he puts his heart and soul into. If there is going to be war—and no one can say that there is not —we must keep him fresh to be our war Prime Minister.”* That was the difference between them.

*Baldwin to J.C.C. Davidson, quoted in Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, vol. 5, Prophet of Truth 1922-1939 (Hillsdale, Mich.: Hillsdale College Press, 2009), 687.

“Love me, love my dog”

Why did Churchill and his Conservative Party lose the general election and, thus, control of the government, in 1945?

This is among the most frequent questions. Churchill himself didn’t lose. He was reelected by a wider margin than in 1935. His party lost because their history was the war, and the depression before that—and because the Labour Party seemed to promise a brave new world. But after ten years the Conservatives were deeply unpopular.

There’s a funny cartoon showing Churchill before the election, holding the leash to an enormous beagle wearing a top hat, with his tongue hanging out, labeled “Tory Party.” The caption says, “Love me, love my dog.” The voters didn’t love the dog.

Best books

What three books by and about Churchill would you recommend to a new Churchill student? What three books about (not by) Churchill must you take to the Gulag?

That presumes the masters of the Gulag will permit any Churchill books!

This has as many answers as questions, but here’s a try. Among his own books, first read My Early Life. Sure it’s full of inaccuracies and special pleading. But it’s a wonderful read, full of insight into his development.

Then read Marlborough, his greatest biography. In the 1960s it was abridged by Henry Steele Commager, who ruined it. He took out the politics and left only the military. Who cares who won the Battle of Ramillies? In the original you can read all of Churchill’s political philosophy, and see the great war speeches aborning. The scholar Leo Strauss called it “the greatest historical work written in our century, an inexhaustible mine of political wisdom and understanding, which should be required reading for every student of political science.”

Third, The Second World War. Again, it’s biased and one sided, but as he said, “this not history, this is my case.” More important, Churchill describes the war that made us what we are today. So it’s more important than The World Crisis, although The World Crisis is better written. (See “Churchill’s War Accounts: History or Memoirs?“)

About Churchill: I mentioned Andrew Roberts’ Walking with Destiny. Next the Official Biography, because you get to take 31 volumes—you’ll never run out. Third, Mary Soames’s Speaking for Themselves: The Personal Letters of Winston and Clementine Churchill. Because this tells us what they were really thinking—a true revelation of their persona.

“Thou shalt not say…”

What would Churchill do/have done about North Korea’s escalating development of nuclear bombs and missiles, which continues as unabated under the present U.S. administration as it did under the previous one?

This raises the Mary Soames Commandment: “Thou shalt not say what Papa would do about any modern situation. After all, how do you know?” History doesn’t repeat, Mark Twain said, but it sometimes rhymes. I think we can get an idea from Churchill, but not the answer. After all, in 1940 the French fleet posed an existential threat, and he didn’t hesitate to take it out. But the French fleet was not a nuclear arsenal, and France was already defeated. It was not the same situation.

Cancel Culture and Free Speech

What would Churchill’s speech be to the Commons on Cancel Culture and Big Tech Censorship?

I don’t know, but what I’ve said about Cancel Culture is based on his thought. We can learn from it. For instance, in 1933, he spoke about much the same impulses in British life:

The worst difficulties from which we suffer do not come from without. They come from within…. They come from a peculiar type of brainy people always found in our country, who, if they add something to its culture, take much from its strength. Our difficulties come from the mood of unwarrantable self-abasement into which we have been cast by a powerful section of our own intellectuals. They come from the acceptance of defeatist doctrines by a large proportion of our politicians.…Nothing can save England if she will not save herself. If we lose faith in ourselves, in our capacity to guide and govern, if we lose our will to live, then indeed our story is told.

As to censorship, he would say what he said in 1952: “Free speech carries with it the evil of all foolish, unpleasant and venomous things that are said; but on the whole we would rather lump them than do away with it.”

Of course he never met up with social media. That presents a real problem. Umberto Eco said: “Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community … but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It’s the invasion of the idiots.” I don’t know what Churchill would say about that. But he would not censor anybody.

Russia and Ukraine

What do you believe Sir Winston’s view would be today respecting Russia’s military presence on its border with Ukraine? Do you believe he would have perceived parallels with 1937-39 continental Europe?

I take refuge in the Mary Soames Commandment. We cannot say what Papa would do today. We can guess—keeping his principles in mind. He was a great proponent of coalitions, domestic and international. He would want to bring the forces of liberty together on such threats. That suggests what he preached in the 1930s: collective security. Today we have NATO, which he praised. (Do we still have NATO? I think so.) But Ukraine is not part of NATO. So this is the place for inspired diplomacy with nations, NATO or not, whose interests are involved.

Another Churchill?

Is there a Churchill available today? Perhaps in view of your admiration for President Macron?

It’s an incidental admiration, because I don’t admire many of his political ideas. I admire his courage and principle over the statues issue. He was adopting Mark Steyn’s precept: Unless you are prepared to surrender everything, surrender nothing.

I don’t think he’s another Churchill. I don’t see anyone out there who is, really. Do you? Remember too that Churchills only come along when the chips are down. The chips are not quite down, although they seem to be getting there.

Herein, some edits of the edits, which diverged slightly from the draft. The published subtitle was, “Here’s betting he would have loved America’s new embassy.” (Never bet on what Churchill might love or not love.) It’s worth noting that the U.S. Embassy is in West Jerusalem. In a settlement, there could also be an Arab seat of government in East Jerusalem. RML

Britain and Israel

Prince William landed in Israel June 25th for the first royal visit to the country. In many respects this marks a historic British recommitment. Churchill’s resolve nearly a century ago ensured that an Israel would exist.

British support of Israel is largely attributed to Arthur James Balfour, for whom the Balfour Declaration is named. By it, Britain backed a “Jewish national home” after the end of World War I. But few know or note that Winston Churchill contributed more to what became Israel than Arthur Balfour. His words to the House of Commons, spoken on American Independence Day, 1922, saved the national home from extinction.

Controversy over the creation of a Jewish state had been building for several years before Churchill made his case on the 4th of July. The Zionist movement, founded by Theodor Herzl in 1897, strove to reestablish a Jewish community in that part of Palestine which was the ancient homeland of the Jews. In 1920, Churchill wrote that if “there should be created in our own lifetime by the banks of the Jordan a Jewish State…an event would have occurred in the history of the world which would, from every point of view, be beneficial.”

Not everyone agreed. Britain had fought the war in part to defeat the Ottoman Empire. Arabs, many argued, should rule there exclusively.

Mandate of Palestine

In the peace that followed World War I, the new League of Nations provided legal status, called “mandates,” for territories transferred from the control of one country to another. The League defined mandates as “waypoints toward independence.” Cynics said it was a polite term for colony-building. Britain received the Mandate of Palestine, including what is now Jordan and Israel. Its capital was Jerusalem.

As colonial secretary in 1921, Churchill established Jordan in six-sevenths of the Mandate and backed a Jewish homeland in the remainder, where the Zionists had largely settled. “One principle of the Balfour declaration,” he told a Jewish delegation, “is that the process of the establishment of a national home for the Jews is to be without prejudice or unfairness to the Arab and Christian inhabitants.” (See Warren Dokter, Churchill and the Islamic World.) Many in Parliament objected. In 1922, they tried to cancel the Balfour Declaration — with warnings that sound remarkably familiar.

In 1922, two-thirds of the House of Lords voted to reject Balfour’s promise, declaring that a Jewish homeland was unacceptable “to the sentiments and wishes of the great majority of the people of Palestine.” The Arabs, said Lord Sydenham, a former colonial administrator, “would never have objected to the establishment of more colonies of well-selected Jews; but, instead of that, we have dumped down 25,000 promiscuous people on the shores of Palestine…. What we have done is… to start a running sore in the East, and no one can tell how far that sore will extend.”

Pushback

In a bravura performance in the House of Commons on 4 July 1922, Churchill turned things around, hurling the earlier words of doubters back at them. Lord Sydenham, he noted, had earlier hoped “…to free Palestine from the withering blight of Turkish rule, and to render it available as the national home of the Jewish people, who can restore its ancient prosperity.”

The Conservative stalwart Sir John Butcher, Churchill said, “has just addressed us in terms of biting indignation.” Then he quoted what Butcher had said in 1917: “I trust the day is not far distant when the Jewish people may be free to return to the sacred birthplace of their race, and to establish in the ancient home of their fathers a great, free, industrial community….”

Sir William Joynson-Hicks, a popular Tory and future government minister, had led the attack on the Balfour Declaration. Churchill flung back at “Jix” his words from 1917: “I will do all in my power to forward the views of the Zionists, in order to enable the Jews once more to take possession of their own land.” Churchill concluded: “If, over the portals of the new Jerusalem, you are going to inscribe the legend, ‘No Israelite need apply,’ then I hope the House will permit me to confine my attention exclusively to Irish matters.”

Turnback

It was, as the historian Paul Johnson wrote, “one of [Churchill’s] greatest speeches.” And it had the intended effect. The House of Commons voted 292-35 to continue Balfour’s Palestine policy, reversing the House of Lords. Johnson considers the speech a watershed: “Without Churchill, it is very unlikely that Israel would ever have come into existence.”

In 1922, Churchill rejected a demand by Arabia’s King Ibn Saud to stop Jews from settling in Palestine. He proposed a compromise, allowing immigration based on Palestine’s economic capacity. As a result, 400,000 Jews escaped from Europe before World War II.

In 1939 Churchill opposed a British white paper again attempting to slow immigration. In 1941, he exempted Palestine from the Atlantic Charter. This declared the right of all peoples to the government of their choice. He explained to President Roosevelt that the Arabs would claim a majority and block Jewish immigration.

Aftermath

Churchill retained sympathy for Arab aspirations and was not unafraid to criticize Jewish extremism. Outraged when his friend Lord Moyne, British minister of state in Cairo, was killed by Stern Gang (Lehi) militants in 1944, he urged Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann to suppress extremism, lest Zionism only produce “a new set of gangsters worthy of Nazi Germany.” Weizmann agreed.

Churchill’s speeches after the founding of Israel were consistently supportive. On his 75th birthday, he received a message from David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister: “Your words and your deeds are indelibly engraved in the annals of humanity. Happy the people that has produced such a son.”

In 2015, the Simon Wiesenthal Center and Museum of Tolerance in New York celebrated Churchill’s

everlasting love and affection for the Jewish people.… Over 600 people watched with an awe that transcends generations…. [This] signaled gratitude to a family that bore much criticism, heartache and professional consequence for its steadfast support of our people and our national home.

Nearly 110 years ago, Churchill said, “Jerusalem must be the [Jews’] only ultimate goal. When it will be achieved it is vain to prophesy… That it will some day be achieved is one of the few certainties of the future.”For Britain as for America, it looks as though that day has arrived. But let us remember to whom we are really indebted for these achievements.

The Churchill Society of Israel serves Israelis with an interest in Sir Winston Churchill, according to Russell Rothstein, quoted in the January 9th Daily Telegraph: “Churchill’s long-standing support of Zionism and friendship with the Jewish people make it particularly appropriate that the modern state of Israel have a local organisation devoted to his memory and to preserving his thoughts, words and deeds for future generations.”

Sir Martin Gilbert, Churchill’s official biographer, added: “Churchill was very familiar with the Old Testament. He wrote about the Children of Israel who “understood and adopted ideas which even ancient Greece and Rome, for all their power, failed to comprehend. He was familiar with the Zionist ideal and supported the idea of a Jewish state.”

“Not a Zionist?”

But Israeli professor Eli Shealtiel, who claims to be a Churchill scholar, disputes Churchill’s credentials: “He was no stranger to the latent anti-Semitism of his generation and class….he lost interest in Zionism after his close friend Lord Moyne was assassinated by Stern Gang extremists in Cairo in November 1944.”

For a Churchill scholar, Professor Shealtiel offers little insight. Churchill had many close Jewish friends throughout life. He was a Zionist at least 1908, when he represented heavily Jewish Manchester North West. As Colonial Secretary in 1921 he promoted a Jewish homeland in Palestine. (Few remember the Mandate was 6/7ths Arab, comprising modern Jordan and Israel). In the 1930s he stridently spoke against Hitler’s pogroms and the British government’s anti-semitic Palestine White Paper. His speeches from 1948 to 1955 were replete with pro-Israel sentiments. Ever the optimist, he hoped for reconciliation between Arabs and Jews.

But Churchill was not an uncritical friend. Outraged when Lord Moyne (Walter Guinness), Minister Resident in Cairo, was shot with his driver by members of the terrorist Stern Gang (Lehi) on 5 November 1944, Churchill wanted Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann to ensure that the Jewish Agency “do all in their power to suppress these terrorist activities.” Martin Gilbert’s official biography, volume 7, Road to Victory, records his speech to the Commons at that time: “If there is to be any hope of a peaceful and successful future for Zionism, these wicked activities must cease, and those responsible for them must be destroyed root and branch.”

“Anti-Semitic”?

The Israeli E-zine Haaretz further quotes Shealtiel as saying “Churchill made a number of anti-Semitic statements.” Which statements, and when? One can’t reply to this sort of unattributed, unspecific, unsubstantiated er, mishegas.

On his 75th birthday Churchill received a message from David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister: “Your words and your deeds are indelibly engraved in the annals of humanity. Happy the people that has produced such a son.”