November 2. On this date in 1917, the UK Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour made public his "Balfour Declaration" to Lord Walter Rothschild stating "His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." On February 23, 1914, at the eve of World War I, 'Abdu'l-Bahá had hosted Baron Edmond James de Rothschild, a member of the Rothschild banking family who was a leading advocate and financier of the Zionist movement, during one of his early trips to Palestine.

 

November 2. On this date in 1917, the UK Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour made public his "Balfour Declaration" to Lord Walter Rothschild stating "His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." On February 23, 1914, at the eve of World War I, 'Abdu'l-Bahá had hosted Baron Edmond James de Rothschild, a member of the Rothschild banking family who was a leading advocate and financier of the Zionist movement, during one of his early trips to Palestine.

On February 23, 1914, at the eve of World War I, 'Abdu'l-Bahá had hosted Baron Edmond James de Rothschild, a member of the Rothschild banking family who was a leading advocate and financier of the Zionist movement, during one of his early trips to Palestine.

On September 8, 1919, subsequent to the British occupation of Palestine, at a time when tens of thousands of Jewish settlers were arriving under the auspices of the Palestine Jewish Colonization Association, an article in the "Star of the West" quoted 'Abdu'l-Bahá praising the Zionist movement, proclaiming that "There is too much talk today of what the Zionists are going to do here. There is no need of it. Let them come and do more and say less" and that "A Jewish government might come later."

At the time of 'Abdu'l-Bahá 's death, Shoghi Effendi was matriculated at Balliol College. In a letter to Marzieh Gail, Shoghi Effendi outlined his educational ambitions at Balliol College, specifically to study with eminent professors and Orientalists, noting alumni who were all Imperialists.

After 'Abdu'l-Bahá 's death, Shoghi Effendi would continue to have close relations with the leading political administrators and prominent Zionist leaders.

In the 1920s, Shoghi Effendi sold land that had been purchased by Bahá'u'lláh in the 1880s to the Jewish National Fund.

Al-Samra (transliterated as as Samrih in the Bahá'í orthography) is mentioned in Lady Blomfield's The Chosen Highway, in the sectioned titled Bahá'í Villages.

The Master bought from time to time some land in various villages. Asfiya and Daliya, near Haifa--these two properties He bestowed upon Diya'u'llah and Badi'u'llah, the two younger half-brothers, at the request of Bahá'u'lláh.

Land was also acquired in the villages of Samrih, Nughayb, and 'Adasiyyih, situated near the Jordan.

In his book All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948, the historian Walid Khalidi details the history of many of these Palestinian villages and how they were depopulated. For example, he notes that in the 1880s most of the village land of al-Samra was purchased by Bahá'u'lláh, with the villagers continuing to farm as tenant farmers. In the 1920s, this land was sold by Shoghi Effendi to the Jewish National Fund. On April 21, 1948, the Arab village of al-Samra, where ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had owned land and grown grain, was depopulated in the fighting which broke out after the U.N. General Assembly's adoption on November 29, 1947 of the Partition Plan for Palestine. On May 14, 1948, the same day as David Ben Gurion's declaration of the State of Israel, the Arab village of al-Nuqayb was depopulated.

On January 24, 1922, Shoghi Effendi received a letter from Herbert Samuel, the British High Commissioner for Palestine. The receipt of the letter is mentioned in Amatu'l-Bahá Rúhíyyih Khánum's The Priceless Pearl. As High Commissioner, Herbert Samuel was the first Jew to govern the historic land of Israel in 2,000 years, and his appointment was regarded by the Muslim-Christian Associations as the "first step in formation of Zionist national home in the midst of Arab people." Herbert Samuel welcomed the arrival of Jewish settlers under the auspices of the Palestine Jewish Colonization Association and recognised Hebrew as one of the three official languages of the Mandate territory.

While Shoghi Effendi was thus occupied and was gathering his powers and beginning to write letters such as these to the Bahá'ís in different countries, he received the following letter from the High Commissioner for Palestine, Sir Herbert Samuel, dated 24 January 1922:

Dear Mr. Rabbani,

I have to acknowledge receipt of your letter of Jan. 16., and to thank you for the kind expression it contains. It would be unfortunate if the ever to be lamented death of Sir 'Abdu'l-Bahá were to interfere with the completion of your Oxford career, and I hope that may not be the case. I am much interested to learn of the measures that have been taken to provide for the stable organization of the Bahá'í Movement. Should you be at any time in Jerusalem in would be a pleasure to me to see you here.

Yours sincerely, Herbert Samuel

From page 348 of the Priceless Pearl, which is in Chapter 14, titled Guiding Lines...

In addition to this Shoghi Effendi inaugurated a "circular letter which the Haifa Bahá'í Spiritual Assembly forwards every nineteen days to all Bahá'í Centres throughout the East." This was in Persian. It had an English counterpart. "The Spiritual Assembly which has been established in Haifa", he wrote to the Swiss Bahá'ís in February 1923, "will from now on send you regularly the news of the Holy Land..." This Haifa News Letter, closely supervised by the Guardian himself, with material provided by him, continued to be sent out until the Haifa Spiritual Assembly was disbanded by Shoghi Effendi at the time he sent the local community away in 1938 and 1939. Measures such as these had the effect of a giant spoon by which he vigorously stirred the entire community of the faithful all over the world, blending, stimulating, challenging its component parts to great action, co-operation and understanding.

This happened at the time that Shoghi Effendi was sending the Bahá'í community in Palestine, all of them Persians, back to Iran. Many of these individuals were promised financial assistance for their resettlement by the Guardian, but never received any, becoming quite destitute. The few who remained were those intimately involved in the Administration, including the relatives who had been or later would be declared Covenant-breakers.

Shoghi Effendi's decision to disband the Palestinian Bahá'í community can only be understood in the context of the history of Palestine at the time. For example, in 1937, one year before Shoghi Effendi "sent the local community away in 1938 and 1939," the Peel Commission proposed a partition of Palestine with the establishment of separate Jewish and Arab states. According to Benny Morris, Ben-Gurion and Weizmann saw this as a stepping stone to some further expansion and the eventual takeover of the whole of Palestine.