Balfour Declaration

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The name Balfour Declaration is applied to two key British government policy statements associated with Conservative statesman and former Prime Minister Arthur Balfour.

  • The first is the Balfour Declaration of 1917: An official letter from the British Foreign Office headed by Arthur Balfour, the UK's Foreign Secretary (from December 1916 to October 1919), to Lord Rothschild, who was seen as a representative of the Jewish people. The letter stated that the British government "view[ed] 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".

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