Balfour Declaration and Cambon-Sokolow Letter, 1917

Background

The Balfour Declaration was initially a letter from Arthur James Balfour, the British foreign secretary, to Lionel Walter Rothschild, aristocrat, wealthy banker, and a leader of the Anglo-Jewish community. As early as 1914, outspoken Jewish leader Chaim Weizmann had concluded the Allies would win the war and hoped that Palestine would fall within England’s sphere of influence because the British were more likely to support the Zionists and Jewish settlement there. Weizmann met with Prime Minister Lloyd George and Jewish cabinet official Herbert Samuel and told the editor of the Manchester Guardian that Samuel had spoken about a plan to establish a Jewish community in Palestine under the British protectorate. The effort was furthered by a publisher, Nahum Sokolow, who represented the Jews in their negotiations with French foreign minister, François Georges-Picot.

The British government hoped that the declaration would rally Jewish opinion, especially in the United States, to the side of the Allied powers against the Central Powers during World War I (1914–18). They hoped also that the settlement in Palestine of a pro-British Jewish population might help to protect the approaches to the Suez Canal in neighbouring Egypt and thus ensure a vital communication route to British colonial possessions in India.

Balfour Declaration - Actual Text

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 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.

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

Yours,

Arthur James Balfour

Cambon-Sokolow Letter - Excerpt

The Secretary General of Foreign Affairs to Mr Sokolof

Paris 4th June 1917

You were good enough to present the project to which you are devoting your efforts, which has for its object the development of Jewish colonization in Palestine. You consider that, circumstances permitting, and the independence of the Holy Places being safeguarded on the other hand, it would be a deed of justice and of reparation to assist, by the protection of the Allied Powers, in the renaissance of the Jewish nationality [nationalité juive] in that land from which the people of Israel were exiled so many centuries ago.

The French government, which entered this present war to defend a people wrongly attacked, and which continues the struggle to assure the victory of right over might, can but feel sympathy for your cause, the triumph of which is bound up with that of the Allies.

I am happy to give you here with such assurance.

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