To return to the meeting: when I found that not one of our opponents was prepared to declare himself an open enemy of the policy of H.M.'s Government, I said that as the formation of the various Committees connected with the Regiment was an essentially Jewish matter I would now retire, and I asked Lord Rothschild to take the Chair. Within half an hour I was summoned by Brigadier-General Sir Auckland Geddes, as he then was. The General appeared to be extremely flurried and annoyed. Apparently, immediately after I had left the meeting, two gentlemen had gone straight from it to Sir Auckland, and made a bitter attack on me for having, as they said, held a Zionist Meeting in the War Office. I assured him that there was no attempt at holding a Zionist meeting, but that a number of representative Jews and others had been called to help me in carrying out the policy of the War Office, and I pointed out that it was entirely due to the two gentlemen who complained, that any question of Zionism had been raised. Why any Jew should be an anti-Zionist passes my comprehension, for the Zionist ideal in no way interfe[1] with the rights and privileges of those fortunate Jews who have found happy homes in friendly countries, but aims at establishing a national home for those less happy ones, who, against their will, are forced to live in exile, and who have never ceased to yearn for the land promised to their forefather Abraham and his seed for ever. Yet I will have to show that, as there were Sanballats[1] who bitterly opposed the restoration in the days of King Artaxerxes 2,500 years ago, so there were modern Sanballats who bitterly opposed the restoration in the days of King George. FOOTNOTE: [1] See Nehemiah, Chapters 3 and 4. CHAPTER III. THE FORMATION OF THE JEWISH REGIMENT. On the 23rd August, 1917, the formation of the "Jewish Regiment" was officially announced in the _London Gazette_, and I was appointed to the command of a Battalion. At the same time it was officially intimated that a special Jewish name and badge would be given to the Battalions of this Regiment. On hearing of this determination the Sanballats immediately got very busy. Heads were put together, and letters written up and down the land to all and sundry who were likely to serve their purpose, with the result that, on the 30th August, 1917, a deputation waited upon Lord Derby (then Secretary of State for War), for the purpose of making representations against the proposed name and badge of the Jewish Regiment, and, in fact, against the formation of any such unit as a Jewish Battalion. One member of this Deputation went so far as to represent to Lord Derby that Lord Rothschild, the head of the celebrated Jewish family, to whom, as representing the Jewish people, Mr. Balfour later on addressed the famous declaration, was also opposed to the formation of a Jewish Regiment.