The Balfour Declaration as a Pound of Flesh

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Merchant of Venice has haunted the Arab–Israeli conflict for over a century, its spectre perhaps no more apparent than in the metaphorical afterlife of the Balfour Declaration – reimagined by both Israelis and Palestinians as a pound of flesh. Issued at the height of the First World War as a brief and ambiguous letter from British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour to Lord Rothschild, President of the Zionist Federation, the Balfour Declaration has become a convenient touchstone for strident commentary on the formation of Israel, Zionist impostures, Arab injustice, Palestinian suffering, and the duplicity of the West in adjudicating the Arab–Israeli conflict. Both the Balfour Declaration and the Pound of Flesh had long-lasting and unanticipated consequences. While Zionists viewed the Balfour Declaration as an inchoate legal endorsement of a Jewish state, just as Shylock understood his bond as sanctioning his demand for Antonio's flesh, Arabs viewed it more literally as carving off a Jewish state from the body of Palestine. The Balfour Declaration's legacy, and its various Shakespearean resonances, has been far less as a binding policy document than as effective propaganda for both Israelis and Palestinians in advancing their completing claims.