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Israel

The Balfour Declaration was issued 107 years ago today

Here is what you need to know about the declaration that helped turn the Zionist aim of establishing a Jewish state in Palestine into a reality.

  • It was a public pledge by the UK declaring its aim to establish “a national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine.
  • The statement came in the form of a letter from the UK’s then-foreign secretary, Arthur Balfour, addressed to Lionel Walter Rothschild, a figurehead of the British Jewish community.

  • It was made during World War I and was included in the terms of the British Mandate for Palestine after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.
  • The system transferred rule from the territories previously controlled by the powers defeated in the war – Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria – to the victors, who would administer the newly emerging states until they could become independent.
  • In the case of Palestine – unlike the rest of the post-war mandates – the main goal of the British Mandate was to create the conditions for the establishment of a Jewish “national home” where Jews constituted less than 10 percent of the population at the time.

Source: Al Jazeera