ABSTRACT
At the height of the First World War, as British troops in the Middle East were poised for the capture of Palestine from the Ottoman Turks, the British government made a remarkable undertaking-later to prove highly controversial-to assist in the establishment of a Jewish home in Palestine (the site of biblical Israel). This declaration, which was in effect a statement of intent to the entire Jewish world, took the form of a letter written by the British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour and addressed to Lord Lionel Rothschild, Honorary President of the Zionist Federation of Great Britain. Balfour asked Rothschild to communicate its contents to the Zionist Federation. The letter is dated 2 November 1917.
