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What did the Balfour Declaration promise?

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The Balfour Declaration promised British government support for the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people. Issued on November 2, 1917, the official statement declared that the British government viewed this goal with favor, while emphasizing that nothing should be done to prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities, or the rights of Jews elsewhere.

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The wording of the 1917 letter

On November 2, 1917, British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour sent a brief letter of 67 words to Walter Rothschild, an informal leader of the British Jewish community, to be conveyed to the Zionist Federation. The letter announced that the British cabinet viewed with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people. To understand the promises made in the Balfour Declaration, one must examine its exact terms: it pledged British best endeavors to facilitate this goal, while including two protective clauses. The first stated that nothing should prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine. The second stated that the status of Jews in any other country should not be harmed.

The phrasing was drafted deliberately to balance competing British strategic priorities during World War I. British leaders hoped to secure international Jewish support in Russia and the United States for the Allied war effort, while also establishing a postwar foothold near the Suez Canal. By using the phrase national home instead of state, and in Palestine rather than of Palestine, the government avoided an open-ended diplomatic or military commitment.

Two national claims and conflicting commitments

The Balfour Declaration did not exist in a vacuum. Between July 1915 and March 1916, Sir Henry McMahon, the British High Commissioner in Egypt, conducted an exchange of ten letters with Hussein bin Ali, the Sharif of Mecca. The McMahon-Hussein Correspondence encouraged an Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire in exchange for British recognition of Arab independence across wide territories. Arab leaders understood Palestine to fall inside that independent area. British officials later argued that territorial reservations excluding areas west of Damascus had ruled Palestine out. This ambiguity created two directly conflicting claims to the same land.

When the League of Nations approved the British Mandate for Palestine in July 1922, it formally incorporated the Balfour Declaration into international law. Both communities interpreted the text differently. Zionist leaders viewed the national home as an internationally recognized foundation to build demographic strength, buy land, and eventually achieve a sovereign Jewish majority. Arab leaders viewed the declaration as a denial of their right to national self-determination, noting that the majority Arab population was referred to only negatively as non-Jewish communities and guaranteed civil and religious rights, but not political rights.

Parallel institutions under the Mandate

Under British rule between 1920 and 1948, the two movements built separate institutional structures. The Jewish community (the yishuv) developed the Jewish Agency, an elected assembly (Asefat HaNivharim), a national council (Vaad Leumi), trade union networks (the Histadrut), and an underground defense force (the Haganah). These bodies functioned almost as an embryonic state.

The Palestinian Arab community organized through the Arab Higher Committee, municipal leaders, and the Supreme Muslim Council, led by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini. However, Arab leaders largely boycotted formal Mandate advisory councils to avoid legitimizing the Balfour terms. Because Britain promised to foster a Jewish national home while also safeguarding existing communities without providing a clear definition of either, the mandate framework trapped both populations in political deadlock.

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Analyzing the Balfour Declaration and British Mandate Commitments

This worksheet is for 11th-grade history students. Read the prompts carefully, analyze the excerpts provided, and answer in complete sentences.

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Analyzing the Balfour Declaration and British Mandate CommitmentsName:

  1. Identify the sender, recipient, and exact date of the Balfour Declaration.

  2. Which specific phrase did the declaration use to describe the proposed Jewish presence, and which common political word did it deliberately avoid?

  3. Explain the significance of the phrase 'in Palestine' compared to 'of Palestine'.

  4. What two safeguard clauses were included in the single sentence of the Balfour Declaration?

  5. Compare Britain's 1915-1916 McMahon-Hussein Correspondence with the 1917 Balfour Declaration. What fundamental conflict did these documents produce?

  6. Source Analysis: Read this clause: 'nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.' What category of rights is absent from this protection, and why did Arab leaders object to this phrasing?

  7. Contrast how Zionist leaders and Palestinian Arab leaders interpreted the phrase 'national home' during the Mandate period.

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Common questions

Did the Balfour Declaration promise an independent Jewish state?

No. The text intentionally promised support for a 'national home' rather than a 'state'. British officials chose this wording to keep their future obligations flexible and avoid committing Britain to create a sovereign country.

What percentage of Palestine was Jewish when the declaration was issued in 1917?

In 1917, Jews made up approximately 8 to 10 percent of Palestine's population, numbering around 55,000 to 60,000 individuals out of roughly 650,000 to 700,000 total inhabitants.

How did the League of Nations Mandate change the status of the Balfour Declaration?

In 1922, the League of Nations approved the British Mandate for Palestine and wrote the Balfour Declaration directly into its text, turning a unilateral British policy declaration into an internationally recognized legal obligation.

Why did Britain issue the Balfour Declaration during World War I?

Britain wanted to secure Jewish financial and political backing in Russia and the United States during World War I, outflank potential German bids for Zionist support, and establish strategic postwar control over the overland route to India and the Suez Canal.

What was the 1939 White Paper, and how did it affect Balfour's promise?

The British White Paper of May 1939 severely capped Jewish immigration to 75,000 over five years, restricted land purchases, and envisioned an independent binational state within ten years. Both Zionist and Arab leaders rejected parts of it, and Zionists viewed it as an abandonment of the Balfour pledge.

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