Of his latest article about Scottish church history, Paul James-Griffiths of Christian Heritage Edinburgh writes, “This week’s article is very topical, as we hear news every day in Israel during the ongoing war there. The Balfour Declaration of 1917 is strongly linked to Scotland and it prepared the way for the return of the Jewish people to their homeland in 1948.”

“One-two-three-four, we don’t want another war! Five-six-seven-eight, Israel is a terror state!” The procession of thousands waving Palestinian flags, led by a Muslim girl of about eight years old, slowly made their way along Princes St in Edinburgh. “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!” another Muslim girl of about six years old, called into the megaphone. Since the massacre by Hamas against Israelis on 7 October 2023, a long, horrible war has dragged on, and our news has been filled with heartbreaking scenes. Amidst accusations against the Jewish people of apartheid, colonial occupation, and genocide by many people, students have pressurised the University of Edinburgh to apologise for its support of an important document called The Balfour Declaration of 1917. So far it has been unsuccessful, although a forged letter claiming a public apology has been doing the rounds on the internet.

So, what was the Balfour Declaration? And why was it so important? For this, we need to understand the background. Since the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in AD 70, the Jewish people have been dispersed through the nations. Jewish people have continually lived in the land of Israel since the time of Joshua (c.1406 BC), but the Roman colonial occupation of the land by force existed between 63 BC and AD 636, with Emperor Hadrian renaming the land Palestine, as part of Syria-Palestina, in AD 135. The Roman colonial power was replaced through conquest by an Islamic colonial power in AD 636, just four years after the death of the Muslim prophet Muhammad. The first Islamic Rashidun Caliphate under the leadership of Umar, Muhammad’s father-in-law, was succeeded in turn by other Muslim dynasties: the Umayyads; the Abbasid, and Fatimid caliphates; the Ayyubid Sultanate, and the Mamluk Sultanate followed them, and culminated with the Ottoman Empire (1516-1917). Thus, Israel became Palestine in AD 135 under the Roman occupation, and the Muslims occupied Palestine for 1,281 years.

The Crusaders tried to liberate Jerusalem and the Holy Land during the Middle Ages for “Christian” purposes, but ultimately failed. It was not until the collapse of the Islamic Ottoman Empire in 1917, that the British moved in as peacekeepers until the State of Israel was reborn on 14 May, 1948, having been voted in by the United Nations. Most of the world stood with the Jewish people who had undergone the horrendous ordeal of the Nazi holocaust during the Second World War, in which 6 million of their people had perished in concentration camps. Since their return home, the Jews, (along with other Israelis, such as Arabs, Armenians and others) have sought to preserve their state against a storm of extraordinary hatred.

On 2 November 1917, Lord Walter Rothschild, who was the leader of the British Jewish Community and Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland, received the longed-for confirmation by Arthur Balfour, the Scottish Prime Minister of Britain. In a letter, much cherished by Jewish people, are the words:

“His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

What is rarely known is the work behind the scenes by Presbyterian Christians. Firstly, although Arthur Balfour was not a serious Presbyterian, his mother, Lady Blanche Cecil, was a devout evangelist who would embarrass her aristocratic family by giving out gospel tracts to the general public. As his mother, she brought him up on the Bible and the prophecies of the Jewish return to Israel were part of his education. In those days the Presbyterian Church longed for the return of the Jewish people to their homeland. Even during the time of great persecution for their faith and stand for Christian democracy in the church, the Covenanter Presbyterians of the 17^th century prayed for the return of the Jewish people. During the last sermon of Revd Richard Cameron on 11 July, 1680, just a week before he was arrested, tortured and executed for his faith, his biographer, Patrick Walker, wrote:

“He fell in such a rap of calm weeping, and the greater part of that multitude, that there was scarce a dry cheek to be seen among them; which obliged him to halt and pray, where he continued long praying for the Jews’ restoration and engrafting again…”

The Edinburgh Council hated Revd Cameron so much, that they told the soldiers to cut off his head and hands and impale them on the city gate, in mockery of his prayers, after they had gleefully shown them to his father who was languishing in prison for his faith.

Among the leading voices proclaiming the return of the Jewish people to their homeland were Dr Thomas Chalmers, Robert Murray M’Cheyne, and many church leaders in the 19^th century. This evangelical Presbyterian movement, which had come out of their covenanting ancestors of the Reformation and their descendants who had signed the National Covenant in 1638, there was a strong biblical sense that God keeps his covenants with the Jews and Christians. This movement spread to Europe and America, preparing the way for the Balfour Declaration of 1917. It is a telling point that of the government’s nine-man steering committee for this declaration, three were Scottish Presbyterians and a fourth was an Ulster-Scots Presbyterian.

““Now it shall come to pass, when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, and you ^[a]call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord your God drives you, ² and you return to the Lord your God and obey His voice, according to all that I command you today, you and your children, with all your heart and with all your soul, ³ that the Lord your God will bring you back from captivity, and have compassion on you, and gather you again from all the nations where the Lord your God has scattered you. ⁴ If any of you are driven out to the farthest parts under heaven, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there He will bring you. ⁵ Then the Lord your God will bring you to the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it. He will prosper you and multiply you more than your fathers.”” (Deuteronomy 30:1-5, NKJV, a prophecy of Moses in c.1400 BC)