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NewStatesman - Sep 27, 2007
http://www.newstatesman.com/200709270051

This coming 2 November marks the 90th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, which promised the Jews a "national home" in Palestine.

As a result, the state of Israel was formed in 1947.

This article, written by the Middle East expert Peter Mansfield half a century after the Balfour Declaration, provides an insightful analysis of a fateful document that provoked the most insoluble problem in contemporary international politics.

Selected by Robert Taylor
Taken from The New Statesman 3 November 1967


40 Years On From The Balfour Declaration

Did We Double-Cross The Arabs?
By Peter Mansfield

The root cause of the chronic instability of the Middle East is an irresponsible act of statesmanship of half a century ago. When the Balfour Declaration was issued on 2 November 1917, in the form of a letter from the British Foreign Secretary to Lord Rothschild, saying that His Majesty's Government 'view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people', some members of the Lloyd George government forecast the storms ahead.

Curzon, who had studied Zionist literature, said he 'could not share the optimistic views held concerning the future of Palestine' and he feared that the Declaration 'raised false expectations which could never be realised'.

Edwin Montagu, Secretary of State for India and the only Jew in the Cabinet, regarded the Declaration as an anti-Semitic act because it would jeopardise the position of Jews throughout the world. He also believed that it broke promises made to the Arabs and violated the principle of self-determination.

These opponents were easily overwhelmed by the confidence of the Declaration's three champions - Balfour, Cecil and Lloyd George himself.

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Foreign Office,

November 2nd, 1917.

Dear Lord Rothschild,

I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet:

"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country".

I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.

Yours sincerely

Arthur James Balfour