The Role of Herbert Samuel in Occupation of Palestine

Following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, the Conference of San Remo was held on 19th to 26th of April 1920, with the presence of the ministers of countries of Britain, France and Italy and representatives from Japan, Greece and Belgium, and in which Syria and Lebanon stood under the tutelage of France and Iraq and Palestine under Britain.
Even though, “league of nations” authorized the context of “letters of administration” of Britain on Palestine on the session dated 24th of June 1922 in London, Britain performed its tutelage on Palestine unofficially from June 1920.
The League of Nations, in the context of the mentioned “letters of administration" emphasized the implement of the provisions of the Balfour Declaration and appointed that: The administrator government is responsible for the implement of the declaration, whose implement was assumed for them in 1917 and upon which the rights of Jews in Palestine and provision of Jewish immigration and encouraging them for settlement and granting them the nationality license are guaranteed.
In this resolution, the official language of Jews was announced and the Jewish agency - which was active in all the related fields to establishment of the national country of Judaism- was officially recognized.
Anyway, since the end of the year 1917, with the consolidation of the Britain’s military government over Palestine, some people would be appointed as the “military governor of Palestine" by General Allenby (British High Commissioner in Egypt); But two months after Conference San Remo, the British government in response to the Zionist leaders, appointed the Jewish Herbert Samuel as High Commissioner in Palestine.
Samuel, who was a totally fanatic Zionist, entered Palestine on June 30th, 1920 as the "general governor" and general Bulls, military governor of Palestine, left that land.
Two months before Samuel entered Palestine, General Allenby who was informed of Samuel’s appointment to this position, announced his disagreement with the selection of Samuel to the British Foreign Office, immediately by telegraph. At some part of this telegraph, it was stated that:
... The appointment of a Jew as the general governor of Palestine, is extremely dangerous.
The population of Muslim Palestinians that are angry enough about the inclusion of the text of the Balfour Declaration on peace agreements, will surely regard the appointment of a Jew as the governor of Palestine- even if he is a British Jew- as an action to Judaize all Palestinian organizations and offices. Therefore, I predict that as soon as the publishing of the news of the appointment of Mr. Samuel, a public movement against Zionism will be held in Palestine.
A member of the British Foreign Office called Hubert Young, sent a note to John Tilly (deputy foreign minister) on General Allenby ‘s Telegraph and in it he stated that:
... Of course I understand that the Majesty government’s goal of selection of a Jew as a general governor of Palestine, is not but to suggest that he really is faithful to his Zionist policy...
Herbert Samuel, before leaving London for departure to Palestine, issued a statement in which he explained his administration's policies in the Palestine. The statement said:
... According to the decision of the Allied and associated powers, an appropriate basis for the establishment of the Jewish national home in Palestine will be provided.
The two-thousand-year Jewish dream- which was manifested in the Zionist movement- finally will be fulfilled and the concrete steps taken in this direction will be with great care to respect and realizing the rights of other non-Jewish residents.
Palestine has space for a much more population than its current residents and...
The Samuel, who had a major role in the Balfour Declaration, was one of the founders of oil company "Shell". The mentioned company is a Jewish monopoly and has been effective on many governments around the world, especially the Arabic states.
Haim Weizmann, following the appointment of Samuel as High Commissioner, said in the United States:
Mr. Herbert Samuel is our close friend, and he accepted this heavy responsibility upon our request and we appointed him in this position. He is our Samuel.
He was the first Jew to rule over Palestine after 2,500 years. He intended to place four to five million Jewish immigrants from around the world in Palestine, in order to disrupt the demographics of the region. Hence, with special procedures, confiscated the Arab lands and transformed them into Jewish settlement. In only one stage of the proceedings, he expelled eight thousand Arabs from their fifty thousand hectares of land and in opposition, he paid each of them three pounds and ten shillings as compensation.
Gradually with the support of Samuel, the Jewish Agency, whose mandate was only socio-economic services to the Jews, became a state within the state.
Granting special privileges to Jewish settlers by Samuel, and depriving the Arabs of basic rights has stimulated a kind of proud and arrogant behavior of the Jews towards the Muslims and Christians and this matter caused many of violent incidents by the Jews against the native Palestinians.
The appointment of Samuel with Zionist thought and having broad powers counts as a big damage for Palestinians, and it is also source of great and vital services to the Zionists and underlies the establishment of the Jewish state. He brought in his memoirs that the British government appointed him to this position with "full knowledge of his Zionist feelings" and the main cause for his appointment is doubtless the same feelings. Even Palestinians in the beginning, recognized him as a totally fanatic Zionist, hence, his appointment was met with many oppositions from Arabs and even the rumor of some actions to assassinate him were also heard. General Bulls, followed by a visit to the country in May, writes about this matter that:
Palestinians believe that the High Commissioner, will take side with the Zionists, and that he is the representative of the Jewish state and not Britain’s.
However, Samuel After entering the Palestinian invited the aristocracies of the city of Jerusalem and its surroundings immediately to a meeting on July 7th, and the aristocracies of Haifa to a meeting on the next day. Here, the Palestinian national movement that had already announced that the Palestinians will not be able to recognize Herbert Samuel official and know him as a Zionist, stepped out and sanctioned the meetings. But finally all but a small group attended the meetings.
... Samuel at any of the two mentioned meeting read the letter which he had written from the king to the people of Palestine, and then gave a speech, during which said he intends to establish a meeting named "consultative assembly" and this way to take the "first step towards autonomy"...
... The Advisory Council, held its first meeting on October 6th 1920. The meeting was held under the supervision of Samuel and had twenty representative. Of the twenty, ten were English and the rest were Palestinians: Seven people were Arab (four Muslims and three Christians on behalf of the three religions Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox) and three Jews. However, all the representatives of the parliament, were appointed, not chosen! In case selected, the Arabs have had the most votes.
Samuel’s planned actions to weaken and dispossession of the Palestinian people of all means at their disposal, and on the other hand, providing the necessary conditions for Jewish immigration to Palestine and assigning Arab lands to them and letting them in their political actions and power over the natural features of Palestine happened so fast, brutal and greedy that he himself believed that the desired Zionist Jewish state will be formed in the thirties of the twentieth century.
Among the first Zionist leaders, who caused sedition and war and killing and bloodshed between Arabs and Jews at the Passover, in the years after World War I, it was Jabotinsky whom the Great British Mandate government on Palestine, sentenced him to fifteen years in prison, due to his crimes, but he has not passes a little of his punishment that with the appointment of Herbert Samuel in Palestine, he was released from prison. He was one of the first Jewish who were supposedly called Communist (!), who immigrated to Palestine through armed violent ways which he had learnt, actually worked and experienced in East Europe.
Samuel appointed a Jewish Zionist as the head of the Palestinian judiciary. During his presidency, each of the judges, whether Muslim or Christian, who did not ignore the crimes of the Jews, were sentenced to dismissal from the service.
British High Commissioner with the purpose of weakening the Arabic and Islamic culture and with the purpose of Judaizing the Palestine and spreading the culture of Palestine and Israel, did not spare any action. "He formalized Hebrew as well as Arabic and English. He put the publishing of Jewish culture and religious education under the supervision of the Executive Committee, and on the other hand, he put the administration of Arabic and Islamic culture in the hands of one person who was English. On money and stamps, he inserted the definition (Israel Land) in Hebrew as translation of the word (Palestine).
Samuel to ensure cooperation with the Zionist state appointed two of the supporters of Zionism, the Wyndham Deeds and Norman Bentwitch, respectively, to the first secretary and legal secretary of Palestinian government. Bentwitch was a Zionist Jew and has some publications about Zionist. He was attorney general of the Palestinian government and the act of legislature was entrusted to him, and that's why he was always exposed to Arabs’ opposition.
During the five-year-old government of Samuel on the Palestinians (1920- 1925 AD), the Jews enjoyed many services and interests and reached many of the sources of producing wealth. On September 1921, a Jew named Rutemberg monopolized of the concession of producing electricity power of Palestine for seventy years.
After a few years, the concession of extracting the Dead Sea’s salts and minerals was given to two Jewish individuals, representatives of the company, Nonomsky and Tulukh and then a contract between the government and the Palestine Potash Company was signed to transfer the Dead Sea for 75 years.
Also to support the manufacturing industries of Jews, Samuel enacted laws which gave Jews the privilege of having duty-free needed materials and tools in setting up and operating factories, and on the other hand, imported goods which Arabs produced in their country, were announced to be free and duty-free.
Herbert Samuel did not deny his extreme attitudes towards Zionism even in his speech and statements. During the speech in 1935 that he gave against the Jewish Historical Society, he said:
I have previously, during the First World War, reached this important and essential conclusion that if the fire of war is subsided, with the victory of the Allied, as we all expected, Palestine with no doubt must be separated from the Ottoman Empire and, taking advantage of this opportunity, the large and independent community of Jews must be established under the support of Great Britain in that land.
He emphasized the same context in November 1914, during an interview with Sir Edward Gray, saying that "the time has arrived that the longtime wish of the Jewish people would be fulfilled, and once again, the Jewish state in Palestine is established".
In the same interview, he represented his beliefs and attitudes towards the 92% of the original inhabitants of Palestine, i.e.: the Arabs, as so:
Essentially the establishment of a new government sounds like something very terrible, especially from the perspective view of a handful of elements who are now living in Palestine.
He believed that: "the establishment of an independent and self-reliant Jewish state, when five-sixths of the Palestinian inhabitants are Arab, is practically not possible."
In other words, in the view of Samuel, the only obstacle to the establishment of the Zionist state in the land of Palestine, was neither being illegitimate, nor being in conflict with international law and nor any other thing, but the only obstacle is the plurality of local residents!
This biased attitude of Samuel towards Zionism and his one-sided implements in supporting the Jews and limiting the sphere of life on the Palestinians, stimulated a wave of anger and hatred among the Arabs of Palestine. On the other hand, expansion of unemployment in "Jaffa" and other cities, and increasing discontent caused by the flood of immigration of Jews to Palestine, gradually intensified the situation, until the discovery of the body of an Arab around the Jews’ camps, intensified the situation and in the first three days of May 1921, bloody events took place.
Captain Brunton, the member of information organization related to Samuel’s government, through his report of those days, says:
The events began with the Jews shooting Arab passersby, and following that, the Arabs attacked the inn that was especially for reception of new Jewish immigrants. Muslims and Christians on this occasion, showed a rare unity in the war against the Zionists.
... Brunton somewhere refers to "appointing Jewish guards in English armors", and somewhere else he says: "all saw and heard that a non-military Jew ordered the English soldiers to shoot people." Then he says, "Jews inspected the Arabs in front of the English soldiers.
Henry Ford, who wrote his book in the same years, says:
Samuel’s Jewish state in Palestine, largely resembles the Bolshevik government in Russia in which most of the members of the government and the state are foreigners.
In short, we must say that the politics and practices of Samuel were precisely set based on considered plans and recommended instructions by the Zionist Committee and Weizmann himself.