The Balfour Declaration
The Balfour Declaration was addressed not to the King George V of Great Britain, the reigning monach of the time; nor to, say, the House of Lords or the House of Commons, but to a Lord Rothschild.
2 November, 1917
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
Baron Rothschild
On November 2, Balfour sent a letter to Lionel Walter Rothschild—scion of the Rothschild family, a prominent Zionist and a friend of Chaim Weizmann—stating that: “His Majesty’s Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors 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.”
By the time the statement was published in British and international newspapers one week later, one of its major objectives had been rendered obsolete: Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks had gained power in Russia, and one of their first actions was to call for an immediate armistice.
Russia was out of the war, and no amount of persuasion from Zionist Jews—who, despite Britain’s belief to the contrary, had relatively little influence in Russia—could reverse the outcome.
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