Balfour Declaration

The Balfour Declaration was a public statement made on 2 November 1917 by the British Government to announce its support for the establishment in Palestine of a "national home for the Jewish people", an intention which later helped lead to the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.

In 1917 at the time of the Balfour Declaration, World War I was still going on, and Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire against which Britain and its allies were aligned. The Jewish population of Palestine then was a small minority only.