The Balfour Declaration emerged from months of correspondence and revision, not a single meeting between two men. Zionist leaders including Chaim Weizmann and Nahum Sokolow pressed the British government for an explicit statement; Walter Rothschild, a prominent British Jewish leader, was the addressee of the final letter. British Cabinet members then shaped and approved the wording. The British Library catalogue records both the 6 October request for Rothschild’s views and Balfour’s 2 November letter. The archive catalogue entry anchors the documentary sequence.
From an expansive proposal to the final sentence
A Zionist draft submitted in July 1917 asked Britain to accept the principle that Palestine should be “reconstituted as the National Home of the Jewish people.” Subsequent exchanges produced a narrower formulation: the government would favor “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” The difference between “as” and “in” is plain in the texts, but the change alone does not settle the future constitutional form or assign a legal meaning to capitalization.
The final letter also removed proposals that would have committed Britain to consult a Zionist organization on future matters. It included language protecting the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities and Jews’ rights and political status elsewhere. The published final text identifies the author, recipient, date, and the exact wording approved by the Cabinet.
Why “national home” did not mean a guaranteed state
The declaration neither promised a Jewish state nor explained what institutions “national home” would entail. It committed the British government to support the project and use its best efforts, subject to the stated safeguards. The term kept the statement politically workable for the British Cabinet while leaving major questions unanswered; readers should not treat it as a precise constitutional blueprint.
The League of Nations later gave Britain a mandate that explicitly tasked it with securing conditions for a Jewish national home while also developing self-governing institutions and protecting inhabitants’ civil and religious rights. Articles 2 and 6 of the Mandate show the later framework in its own language. For the declaration’s meaning, see the text and its limits; for wartime context, see Britain’s motives.