The Balfour Declaration was a letter dated 2 November 1917 from British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Lord Rothschild. It said the British government “view with favour” establishing “in Palestine a national home for the Jewish people” and would use its “best endeavours” to help achieve it. The same sentence set two safeguards: nothing should prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status Jews enjoyed in other countries. The full letter, preserved by the Avalon Project, makes both commitments visible in the original text.
What the letter promised—and left undefined
The letter endorsed a national home; it did not use the words “state,” “sovereignty,” or “self-determination,” and it did not define the territory’s future constitution. Its wording therefore cannot be treated as a declaration of immediate statehood. It was a British government policy statement during World War I, addressed to Rothschild for transmission to the Zionist Federation.
The safeguards were specific but not symmetrical in wording. The clause names civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities; it does not expressly mention their political rights. Separately, it protects Jews’ rights and political status in every other country. These are the terms of the letter, not a grant of sovereignty to either community.
How the commitment acquired an international framework
The League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, approved on 24 July 1922 and brought into force on 29 September 1923, referred to the 1917 declaration in its preamble. Article 2 assigned Britain responsibility for securing conditions for a Jewish national home, developing self-governing institutions, and safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all inhabitants. Article 6 called for facilitating Jewish immigration under suitable conditions. The Mandate text is a later, distinct instrument; it incorporated related commitments but did not turn the 1917 letter itself into a sovereignty document.
Read next: how the letter was drafted, why Britain issued it, and how it related to Britain’s other wartime commitments.