IN general it may be said that until recently the Rothschild family has opposed Zionism on the grounds that it would be dangerous for their status as “citizens” of the various nations they infested. Mayer Amschel Rothschild, the son of the original Amschel Mayer, refused in 1845 to have anything to do with Zionism. Edmund Rothschild also opposed political Zionism, although the Jewish colonies in Palestine before the war really owed their existence to his donations. In 1900 he ceded his eight “colonies” in Palestine to the Jewish Colonisation Association. But he approached Lord Bertie of Thame about a National Home in Palestine on 25th January, 1915. (P, p. 105). Nathaniel in England was also an opponent of Zionism, until he met Theodor Herzl, the Zionist leader, in 1902, when, alone in the Rothschild family he endorsed the project for making a National Home for the Jews in East Africa. After a while, the resistance of other Rothschilds to Zionist ideas was worn down, and Balfour made his notorious “Declaration” of 1917 as an address to Baron Lionel Walter Rothschild. The first Zionist political committee’s meeting on 7th Feb., 1917, had been attended by Lionel Walter and by James Rothschild, son of Edmond. |