ISAACS, Isaac. Sir Isaac Isaacs, first Australia-born Australian Governor-General, denounced Zionism

Sir Isaac Isaacs (1855–1948), an Australian judge and politician, was the ninth Governor General of Australia and the first born in Australia to occupy that post. He was strongly opposed to Zionism and was the author of the 60 page booklet “Political Zionism: Undemocratic, Unjust, Dangerous” in 1943): (see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Isaacs ; also see Max Gordon, “Sir Isaac Isaacs”, Heinemann, Adelaide, 1963).

Sir Isaac Isaacs was concerned for the rights of Indigenous Palestinians and supported the British White Paper of 1939 restricting Jewish immigration to the Palestine Mandate and was accordingly vilified by local Australian Zionists, notwithstanding his great eminence.

The Balfour Declaration is reproduced here for the context (my emphasis added; see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration_of_1917 ).

Foreign Office,

November 2nd, 1917.

Dear Lord Rothschild,

I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet:

"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country".

I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.

Yours sincerely

Arthur James Balfour

Sir Isaac Isaacs, 1946: “The honour of Jews throughout the world demands the renunciation of political Zionism." [1].

Sir Isaac Isaacs: "the Zionist movement as a whole...now places its own unwarranted interpretation on the Balfour Declaration, and makes demands that are arousing the antagonism of the Moslem world of nearly 400 millions, thereby menacing the safety of our Empire, endangering world peace and imperiling some of the most sacred associations of the Jewish, Christian, and Moslem faiths. Besides their inherent injustice to others these demands would, I believe, seriously and detrimentally affect the general position of Jews throughout the world." [1].

[1]. Sir Isaac Isaacs, quoted by Wikipedia, ”Isaac Isaacs”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Isaacs .