Herbert Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel

Initially he had not been a supporter of women's suffrage but then changed his position. In 1917, a Speakers Conference was charged with looking into giving women the vote but did not have, in its terms of reference, consideration to women standing as candidates for parliament. However, Samuel moved a separate motion on 23 October 1918 to allow women to be eligible as Members of Parliament. The vote was passed by 274 to 25, and the government rushed through a bill to make it law in time for the 1918 election.[12]

One month after Britain's declaration of war on the Ottoman Empire in November 1914, Samuel met Chaim Weizmann, who was to become the President of the World Zionist Organization and later the first President of Israel. According to Weizmann's memoirs, Samuel was already an avid believer in Zionism and believed that Weizmann's demands were too modest. Samuel did not want to enter into a detailed discussion of his plans but mentioned that "the Jews would have to build railways, harbours, a university, a network of schools, etc", as well as potentially a Temple in "modernised form".[13] In January 1915, Samuel circulated a memorandum, The Future of Palestine, to his cabinet colleagues, suggesting that Britain should conquer Palestine in order to protect the Suez Canal against foreign powers, and for Palestine to become a home for the Jewish people.[14] The memorandum stated, "I am assured that the solution of the problem of Palestine which would be much the most welcome to the leaders and supporters of the Zionist movement throughout the world would be the annexation of the country to the British Empire". In March 1915, Samuel replaced the January 1915 draft version with the final version of his memorandum, toned down from the earlier draft, explicitly ruling out any idea of immediately establishing a Jewish state and emphasizing that non-Jews must receive equal treatment under any scheme.[15]

Historic plaque on King George Street, Jerusalem, affixed in 1924 by Herbert Samuel during his term as High Commissioner for Palestine

Herbert Samuel at wedding of his son Edwin Samuel, 1920

Herbert Samuel with Edmond Rothschild, 1920

In 1917, Britain occupied Palestine (then part of the Ottoman Empire) during the course of the First World War. Samuel lost his seat in the election of 1918 and became a candidate to represent British interests in the territory.

He was appointed to the position of High Commissioner in 1920, before the Council of the League of Nations approved a British mandate for Palestine. Nonetheless, the military government withdrew to Cairo in preparation for the expected British Mandate, which was finally granted two years later by the League of Nations. He served as High Commissioner until 1925.[16] Samuel was the first Jew to govern the historic Land of Israel in 2000 years.[17]

He recognised Hebrew as one of the three official languages of the territory. He was appointed Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (GBE) on 11 June 1920.

Samuel's appointment to High Commissioner for Palestine was controversial. While the Zionists welcomed the appointment of a Zionist Jew to the post, the military government, headed by Edmund Allenby and Louis Bols, called Samuel's appointment "highly dangerous".[18]

Technically, Allenby noted, the appointment was illegal, as a civil administration that would compel the inhabitants of an occupied country to express their allegiance to it before a formal peace treaty (with the Ottoman Empire) was signed violated both military law and the Hague Convention.[19] Bols said the news was received with "consternation, despondency and exasperation" by the Muslims and Christians.[20] Allenby said that the Arabs would see it "as handing country over at once to a permanent Zionist Administration" and predicted massive violence.

Lord Curzon read the last message to Samuel and asked him to reconsider accepting the post. Samuel took advice from a delegation in London representing the Zionists, who told him that the "alarmist" reports were not justified.[21] The Muslim-Christian Association had sent a telegram to Bols:

Sir Herbert Samuel regarded as a Zionist leader, and his appointment as first step in formation of Zionist national home in the midst of Arab people contrary to their wishes. Inhabitants cannot recognise him, and Muslim-Christian Society cannot accept responsibility for riots or other disturbances of peace.

The wisdom of appointing Samuel was debated in the House of Lords a day before he arrived in Palestine. Lord Curzon said that no "disparaging" remarks had been made during the debate but that "very grave doubts have been expressed as to the wisdom of sending a Jewish Administrator to the country at this moment".

Questions in the House of Commons of the period also show much concern about the choice of Samuel: "what action has been taken to placate the Arab population... and thereby put an end to racial tension". Three months after his arrival, The Morning Post commented: "Sir Herbert Samuel's appointment as High Commissioner was regarded by everyone, except Jews, as a serious mistake."

Sir Herbert Samuel, seated centre, with Jerusalem church leaders and British officials, 1922.

TE Lawrence with Sir Herbert Samuel, Sheik Majid Pasha el Adwan (at far right) and Gertrude Bell (at left) at the aerodrome of Amman, April 1921

Herbert Samuel 1924

As High Commissioner, Samuel attempted to mediate between Zionist and Arab interests, acting to slow Jewish immigration and win the confidence of the Arab population. He hoped to gain Arab participation in mandate affairs and to guard their civil and economic rights, but refused them any authority that could be used to stop Jewish immigration and land purchase.[22] According to Wasserstein his policy was "subtly designed to reconcile Arabs to the... pro-Zionist policy" of the British.[23]

Islamic custom at the time was that the chief Islamic spiritual leader, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, was to be chosen by the temporal ruler, the Ottoman Sultan in Constantinople, from a group of clerics nominated by the indigenous clerics. After the British conquered Palestine, Samuel chose Haj Amin al Husseini, who later proved a thorn in the side of the British administration in Palestine. At the same time, he enjoyed the respect of the Jewish community, and he was honoured by being called to the Torah at the Hurva synagogue in the Old City of Jerusalem.[24]

During Samuel's administration the Churchill White Paper was published. It supported Jewish immigration within the economic absorptive capacity of the country to accommodate them and defined the Jewish national homeland as:

"not the imposition of a Jewish nationality upon the inhabitants of Palestine as a whole, but the further development of the existing Jewish community, with the assistance of Jews in other parts of the world, in order that it may become a centre in which the Jewish people as a whole may take, on grounds of religion and race, an interest and a pride".[25]

Samuel won the confidence of all sections of the population by his noted "impartiality".[26] He struck a particularly strong relationship with Pinhas Rutenberg, granting him exclusive concessions to produce and distribute electricity in Palestine and Trans-Jordan, often strongly backing Rutenberg in his relations with the Colonial Office in London.[27] Samuel government signed the Ghor-Mudawarra Land Agreement with the Baysan Valley Bedouin tribes, that earmarked for transfer 179,545 dunams of state land to the Bedouin.[28]

Samuel's role in Palestine is still debated. According to Wasserstein:

"He is remembered kindly neither by the majority of Zionist historians, who tend to regard him as one of the originators of the process whereby the Balfour Declaration in favour of Zionism was gradually diluted and ultimately betrayed by Great Britain, nor by Arab nationalists who regard him as a personification of the alliance between Zionism and British imperialism and as one of those responsible for the displacement of the Palestinian Arabs from their homeland. In fact, both are mistaken."[29]