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The Balfour Declaration was a public statement issued by the British Government in 1917 during the First World War announcing its support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine, then an Ottoman region with a small minority Jewish population.
- 2 November 1917
- Arthur James Balfour
The Balfour Declaration was a public pledge by Britain, declaring its aim to establish "a national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine. The statement came in the form of a letter from...
- What Is The Balfour Declaration?
- Why Was It Controversial?
- Why Was It issued?
- How Was It Received by Palestinians and Arabs?
- Who Else Was Behind It?
- What Impact Did It Have on Palestinians?
The Balfour Declaration (“Balfour’s promise” in Arabic) was a public pledge by Britain in 1917 declaring its aim to establish “a national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine. The statement came in the form of a letter from Britain’s then-foreign secretary, Arthur Balfour, addressed to Lionel Walter Rothschild, a figurehead of the British Jewis...
The document was controversial for several reasons. Firstly, it was, in the words of the late Palestinian-American academic Edward Said, “made by a European power … about a non-European territory … in a flat disregard of both the presence and wishes of the native majority resident in that territory”. In essence, the Balfour Declaration promised Jew...
The question of why the Balfour Declaration was issued has been a subject of debate for decades, with historians using different sources to suggest various explanations. While some argue that many in the British government at the time were Zionists themselves, others say the declaration was issued out of an anti-Semitic reasoning, that giving Pales...
In 1919, then-US President Woodrow Wilson appointed a commission to look into public opinion on the mandatory system in Syriaand Palestine. The investigation was known as the King-Crane commission. It found that the majority of Palestinians expressed a strong opposition to Zionism, leading the conductors of the commission to advise a modification o...
While Britain is generally held responsible for the Balfour Declaration, it is important to note that the statement would not have been made without prior approval from the other Allied powers during World War I. In a War Cabinet meeting in September 1917, British ministers decided that “the views of President Wilson should be obtained before any d...
The Balfour Declaration is widely seen as the precursor to the 1948 Palestinian Nakba when Zionist armed groups, who were trained by the British, forcibly expelled more than 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland. Despite some opposition within the War Cabinet predicting that such an outcome was probable, the British government still chose to iss...
- 49 min
Dec 14, 2017 · The Balfour Declaration was a letter written by British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Lionel Walter Rothschild, in which he expressed the British government’s support for a Jewish...
May 22, 2017 · Secretary Balfour addressed his finalized letter on November 2, 1917 to prominent Zionist Baron Lionel Walter Rothschild. Heir to the banking family’s empire, Rothschild was also a British...
Feb 6, 2024 · The Jewish people have a very ancient history in the land known both as Palestine and the Land of Israel. The Jewish claim to indigeneity is based on a three-thousand-year-old continuous history and the status of the land since ancient times as the focus of Jewish life and yearning.
Nahum Sokolow. A Polish writer and diplomat, Nahum Sokolow is a lesser-known key player in the Balfour Declaration, though his behind-the-scenes work had a major impact on the issuing of the...
