Balfour Declaration
1917 British government pledge to support "a national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine
| Balfour Declaration
| |
|---|---|
 The letter from Arthur James Balfour to Lord Rothschild, 2 November 1917 | |
| Type | Government policy statement |
| Date | 2 November 1917 |
| Location | London |
| Participants | Arthur James Balfour (Foreign Secretary); Lord Rothschild; Zionist Federation |
| Outcome | Incorporated in the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine (1922) |
The Balfour Declaration was a letter of 2 November 1917 from the British Foreign Secretary, Arthur James Balfour, to Lord Rothschild. It conveyed the British government's "declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations", which the Cabinet had approved:
"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."[1]
Balfour asked Rothschild to bring the declaration "to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation".[1] The declaration was written into the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, which made Britain responsible for putting it into effect and required the administration to encourage "close settlement by Jews on the land".[2]
Context
The declaration was issued on 2 November 1917, "more than a month before the British occupation of Jerusalem". According to a study prepared for the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, the Jewish population of Palestine in 1918 was "about a tenth of the whole".[3] A commission of inquiry appointed at the urging of US President Woodrow Wilson reported that the non-Jewish population, "nearly nine-tenths of the whole", was "emphatically against the entire Zionist programme".[3] An Arab delegation sent to London in 1921 wrote: "The Balfour Declaration was made without our being consulted, and we cannot accept it as deciding our destinies."[3]
Balfour's own view
In a confidential memorandum of August 1919, quoted in the same UN study, Balfour wrote:
"The Four Great Powers are committed to Zionism. And Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long traditions, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land."[3]
On another occasion he said: "We are dealing not with the wishes of an existing community but are consciously seeking to reconstitute a new community and definitely building for a numerical majority in the future."[3]
The Mandate
The Mandate for Palestine, dated 24 July 1922, made Britain responsible "for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2nd, 1917". Article 4 provided for "an appropriate Jewish agency" to advise and co-operate with the administration on matters affecting "the establishment of the Jewish national home". Article 6 required the administration to "facilitate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions" and to encourage, "in co-operation with the Jewish agency", "close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes".[2]
Responses
The right wing of the Labour Zionist Poale Zion movement, which held the majority in Palestine, the United States, Britain and Argentina, supported the declaration. The declaration and the Russian Revolution sparked a split in the movement that came to a head in 1920.[4][4]
At a dinner marking the centenary in 2017, attended by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the British Prime Minister Theresa May said: "when some people suggest we should apologise for this letter, I say absolutely not. We are proud of our pioneering role in the creation of the State of Israel."[5]
See also
- Theodor Herzl
- Chaim Weizmann
- World Zionist Organization
- Zionist Federation of the United Kingdom and Ireland
- Zionist movement UK
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Arthur James Balfour, letter to Lord Rothschild, 2 November 1917, Balfour Declaration 1917, The Avalon Project, Yale Law School, accessed 23 October 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 League of Nations, The Palestine Mandate, 24 July 1922, The Avalon Project, Yale Law School, accessed 23 October 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 United Nations, The International Status of the Palestinian People, prepared for the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, New York: United Nations, 1981, accessed 23 October 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Samuel Kassow, Po'ale Tsiyon, The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, accessed 23 October 2026.
- ↑ Prime Minister's Office, PM speech at Balfour Centenary Dinner, 2 November 2017, accessed 23 October 2026.