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What was the purpose of the Balfour Declaration?
What was the purpose of the Balfour Declaration?
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The Balfour Declaration, issued on November 2, 1917, was a statement by the British government expressing support for the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine. The declaration was made in the form of a letter from the United Kingdom’s Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour, to Lord Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community.
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.
It was made in a letter from Arthur James Balfour, the British foreign secretary, to Lionel Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild (of Tring), a leader of the Anglo-Jewish community.
The declaration had many long-lasting consequences. It greatly increased popular support for Zionism within Jewish communities worldwide, and became a core component of the British Mandate for Palestine, the founding document of Mandatory Palestine. It indirectly led to the emergence of the State of Israel and is considered a principal cause of the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict, often described as the world’s most intractable.
Controversy remains over a number of areas, such as whether the declaration contradicted earlier promises the British made to the Sharif of Mecca in the McMahon–Hussein correspondence.