Balfour Declaration – imperial opportunism

   

 

The Balfour Declaration, 2 November 1917, expressed the support of the British government during WW1 for the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine, then an Ottoman region with a minority Jewish population. And it added: “it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”. The British government later confirmed that the words “in Palestine” meant that the Jewish national home was not intended to cover all of Palestine. The raison d’etre for the declaration was to rally support against the Ottoman Empire. The British government acknowledged in 1939 that the local population’s views should have been taken into account, and recognized in 2017 that the declaration should have called for the protection of the Palestinian Arabs’ political rights.

In 1920 the Brits took over the mandate for Palestine, coping badly with rising tensions between the indigenous Arab population and an influx of Jewish refugees from fascist Europe. Initially the Jews in Palestine had been peaceful but under attack some turned militant; the British put down an Arab Revolt against Jewish immigrants (1936 to 39), weakened the Palestinian Arab leadership and de-weaponised them which hampered their efforts in the 1947 civil war. In 1946 Jewish terrorists blew up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, killing over 90 UK embassy staff. The Brits then exited in disarray saying they could not settle the conflict between Arabs and Jews. On 14 May 1948 at 4pm Israel was born.

The Balfour Declaration 1917 chart has Sun Mercury in Scorpio square Neptune Saturn in Leo, trine Pluto inconjunct Jupiter; with Saturn opposition Uranus – idealistic, controlling, autocratic, over-hopeful. At that point Mars had just moved out of Leo into Virgo. When Israel kicked off, the bleak Saturn Pluto conjunct was in Leo, with the Moon and Mars also in Leo and Mars Saturn squared onto an 8th house Taurus Sun. It is a formidably stubborn, aggressive and enduring chart.

The Balfour Declaration chart showed considerable concern and disappointment in 1949/50 as it became clear that the Israeli leaders were intent on belligerent self-protection and territorial expansion, with Arab Palestinians being driven from their homes and in some instances massacred.

At present the Israel-Palestinian conflict remains one of the world’s most intractable and unsolved problems. Tr Uranus in Taurus from 2019 to 2025 will elbow the Israel chart sharply, especially  2023 to 2025. But it is tr Pluto in Aquarius beginning the long haul in opposition to the Israel Moon from 2027 and especially through the 2030s, starting on a Pluto Half Return and then tr Pluto opposing Saturn and squaring the Israel Sun and then opposing Mars across into 2040 that will force changes on Israel and change its trajectory and priorities.

It always was an impossible dilemma given the Jewish people’s long history of persecution, culminating in the atrocity of the Holocaust. But as the Saudi King Ibn Saud (evidently) remarked it was unfair that the Arab Palestinians had to pay for assuaging European guilt. There should have been international policing from the start but the USA and Europe were trying to haul themselves out of the wreckage of WW11 so looked the other way. That plus the damage that superpower meddling always leaves behind  – Palestine, Iraq, Kashmir, India v Pakistan, Ireland, Africa – a goodly chunk of the turmoil there can be blamed squarely on the British Empire.

9 thoughts on “Balfour Declaration – imperial opportunism

  1. Imperial Britain gave away Palestine as a reward for what should probably have been patriotic duty. I think the Rothschilds and other wealthy Jewish bankers played a role too

  2. Deborah,

    Zionists maintain the document is valid and had the full weight of the uk govt behind it, but then they would. Maybe the mercury square Neptune at work, the opaque lack of clarity. Perfidious Albion probably covers it, one country giving away a second country to a third party…some have speculated the zionists’ quid pro quo was to induce the USA into the first world war in exchange for the “gift” of Palestine.

  3. Once I was curious enough about this document to do some independent research on it. One thing I learned (if I understood correctly) was that the “Balfour document” was simply a letter from Balfour, never intended to have the full weight of an official U.K. mandate. Yet here we are now, with more settlements on the way.

  4. Yes I see that. Maybe the coronation of individual monarchs e.g. Elizabeth 1, Henry 8, Victoria, and also the unions with in the British isles will have a sense of what was implicit in those dates, empire, conquest, military might and so on?

  5. Not really since it started in one way with Henry V111 declaring an imperial crown for England; but really got under way via trade in Elizabeth 1’s time and trade moved into territorial control in the 18th century especially in India. If the England 973AD chart holds good then it is a Sun Mars in Taurus square Pluto, which sounds materialistic and dominating enough. And that chart was on a Pluto Return in the mid to late 1950s when the old Empire was let go bit by bit. With India/Pakistan and Palestine going in the run up in the late 1940s.

  6. Thanks Marjorie
    And the sun/mercury squares deceptive and misleading Neptune, a lack of clarity or honesty in Balfours Declaration? The indigenous population do seem to have been lied to and misled ever since. Do you think it’s possible to ratify a workable date in respect of the birth of retains colonial past for astrological purposes? Israels behaviour always strikes me as ” the abused child that grows up to become the abuser”.

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