Anonymous ID: 9bc05c Oct. 30, 2023, 8:57 p.m. No.19834629   🗄️.is đź”—kun

Against this troubling backdrop, the government of Prime Minister David Lloyd George—elected in December 1916—made the decision to publicly support Zionism, a movement led in Britain by Chaim Weizmann, a Russian Jew who had settled in Manchester, England.

The motives behind this decision were various: First, a genuine belief in the righteousness of the Zionist cause was held by Lloyd George and many other influential leaders. Additionally, Britain’s leaders hoped that a formal declaration in favor of Zionism would help gain Jewish support for the Allies in neutral countries, in the United States and especially in Russia, where the anti-Semitic czarist government had just been overthrown with the help of Russia’s Jewish population.

Finally, despite Britain’s earlier agreement with France dividing influence in the region after the presumed defeat of the Ottoman Empire, Lloyd George had come to see British dominance in Palestine—a land bridge between the crucial territories of India and Egypt—as an essential post-war goal.

The establishment of a Zionist state there—under British protection—would accomplish this goal, while also following the Allied aim of self-determination for smaller nations.