The Balfour Declaration

The British Campaign in Palestine and the Balfour Declaration

March 1917 – September 1918

Britain launched its “Palestine Campaign” against the Ottoman Empire in March 1917. The Balfour Declaration was issued by Arthur James Balfour, the British Foreign Secretary, on November 2, 1917, in a letter addressed to Baron Lionel Walter de Rothschild, in which he pledged British support for the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine.

The declaration marked the culmination of the close relationship between the British Empire and the international Zionist movement, which Britain regarded as a colonial base and instrument in the heart of the Arab homeland and at a strategically important crossroads connecting the routes of the five continents.

The declaration was followed by the British occupation of Jerusalem in December 1917, while the remainder of Palestine was occupied by September 1918.

Winston Churchill and Lord Balfour during their visit to Jerusalem in 1917.

The Text of the Balfour Declaration