What caused Arthur Balfour to write the Balfour Declaration?
I was just reading about this the other day. The declaration came out at the end of WW1. The Ottoman Empire, which was aligned with Germany and Austria-Hungary, was beaten, and was being carved up among the victors. There were a lot of discussions about who got what, and one of the territories on the table for discussion was Palestine. There was a strong Zionist movement even before the Nazis came along, and the British Government was very sensative to that. The declaration promising Jews possession of Palestine was just a letter he had written to Lord Rothschild (sp?), a prominant British Jew. It really had no force of law. But the Jews latched onto it as their guarantee to the homeland they were seeking. The Palestinians didn’t even know about the declaration and the ‘promise’ that had been made. So this is how wars get started… Hope that helps.
