BALFOUR DECLARATION

(Nov. 2, 1917), statement of British support for the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people. It was made in a letter from Arthur James Balfour, the British foreign secretary, to Lionel Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild, a leader of British Jewry. The Balfour Declaration, issued through the continued efforts of Chaim Weizmann and Nahum Sokolow, Zionist leaders in London, fell short of the expectations of the Zionists, who had asked for the reconstitution of Palestine as the Jewish national home. The declaration specifically stipulated that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine. Nevertheless, it aroused enthusiastic hopes among Zionists and seemed the fulfillment of the aims of the World Zionist Organization. The British government hoped that the declaration would rally Jewish opinion, especially in the United States, to the side of the Allies and that the settlement in Palestine of a pro-British Jewish population might help to protect the approaches to the Suez Canal in neighbouring Egypt. The Balfour Declaration was endorsed by the principal Allied powers and was included in the British mandate over Palestine, approved by the League of Nations on July 24, 1922. In May 1939 the British government altered its policy in a white paper recommending a limit of 75,000 further immigrants and an end to immigration by 1944. Zionists condemned the new policy, accusing Britain of favouring the resident Palestinian Arabs of the region.