Balfour Declaration

The Balfour Declaration was a public statement issued on November 2 1917 by the British government during World War I expressing support for the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine a territory then under Ottoman rule and inhabited by an overwhelming Arab Palestinian majority.

The declaration took the form of a letter written by British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour to Lord Walter Rothschild a leading figure in the British Jewish community for transmission to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland.

Key individuals involved included

• Arthur James Balfour British Foreign Secretary
• David Lloyd George British Prime Minister
• Lord Walter Rothschild Zionist intermediary
• Chaim Weizmann Zionist leader later first President of Israel

Key governments and entities involved

• British Government
• Zionist Federation
• British War Cabinet
• Ottoman Empire sovereign power over Palestine at the time

At the time of the declaration approximately 90 percent of Palestines population was Arab Muslim and Christian and about 10 percent was Jewish. The declaration was issued without consultation or consent of the indigenous Palestinian population.

The declaration contradicted earlier British commitments including

• The Hussein McMahon Correspondence 1915 to 1916 which promised Arab independence in exchange for revolt against the Ottomans
• The principle of self determination promoted after World War I

The declaration stated that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non Jewish communities in Palestine but it made no mention of political or national rights for Palestinians.

After World War I Britain incorporated the Balfour Declaration into the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine in 1922 giving it legal force under international law. British authorities facilitated Jewish immigration land acquisition and the development of Zionist institutions while suppressing Palestinian political organization and resistance.

Consequences and suffering

• Large scale land dispossession through legal and coercive mechanisms
• Marginalization of Palestinian political rights
• Repeated uprisings and violent suppression notably 1920 1929 and 1936 to 1939
• Thousands of Palestinians killed imprisoned or exiled during the Mandate period

The Balfour Declaration laid the political and legal groundwork for the eventual establishment of the State of Israel and directly contributed to the displacement of Palestinians culminating in the Nakba of 1948.