Page:The Truth about Palestine.djvu/8

 the war; nor is any other undertaking whatever produced in support of the charge of bad faith, with the sole exception of a proclamation stated to have been issued by Lord Allenby "on behalf of England, France and America" [sic] on October 14th, 1918—a date when the war with Turkey was at an end. The imaginary character of this proclamation is apparent on the face of it. "America" was not a party to the war with Turkey and Lord Allenby was not in a position to speak in its name. The alleged proclamation of October 14th, 1918, is, in fact, fictitious. The only "proclamation" that can conceivably be referred to is the Anglo-French Declaration of November 7th, 1918, which was issued by Lord Allenby in the Occupied Enemy Territories on November 14th. Of this document it is sufficient to observe that while it expressly speaks of Syria and Mesopotamia, it never mentions Palestine; nor could it in any case conceivably be interpreted as a silent annulment of the Balfour Declaration, which had already been publicly on record for more than a year and which, on the Delegation's own showing, was well known to the Arab population of Palestine at the time of Lord Allenby's pronouncement.

These are the "solemn pledges" with which the fulfilment of the British promise to the Jews is alleged to be incompatible. It is only necessary to analyse them as set forth by the Delegation itself to be satisfied that no such incompatibility exists. Were it otherwise, indeed, it is inconceivable that Viscount Grey, who was at the Foreign Office during the negotiations with King Hussein on which the Delegation relies, would have declared, as he did in December, 1917, that "he was entirely in sympathy with the Declaration made by Mr. Balfour, and was very glad that it had been publicly announced as the view of the British Government."

If the alleged breach of faith was imperceptible to so high-minded a statesman as Viscount Grey, it was