BALFOUR DECLARATION

Balfour Declaration: translation

   The Balfour Declaration was issued by the government of Great Britain on 2 November 1917. Substantial effort by the Zionist organization, with a special role played by Chaim Weizmann, preceded the government's decision, made after lengthy discussion and some divisiveness. The declaration took the form of a letter from Arthur James Balfour, the foreign secretary, to Lord Rothschild, a prominent British Zionist leader. It stated as follows: "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."

   The declaration was vague and sought to assuage the fears of prominent Jews in Great Britain as well as those of the non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine.Nevertheless, it engendered much controversy then and since. Among the problems was its apparent conflict with arrangements made during World War I by the British with the French and the Arabs concerning the future of the Middle East after the termination of hostilities. Foremost among those was the Hussein-McMahon correspondence, which the Arabs saw as a promise that an independent Arab kingdom would include all of Palestine, although the British later argued that they had excluded the territory west of the Jordan River from that pledge. The Balfour Declaration provided a basis for Zionist claims to Palestine.

   See also Arab-Israeli Conflict; British Mandate for Palestine.