Edmund Allenby, Arthur James Balfour, and Herbert Samuel.
British Gen. Edmund Allenby (left) standing with Arthur James Balfour (center), and Herbert Louis Samuel, the first High Commissioner for Palestine, during a visit to Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Palestine, 1925.
Balfour Declaration
United Kingdom [1917]
Balfour Declaration, statement of British support for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” It was made in a letter dated November 2, 1917, from Arthur James Balfour, the British foreign secretary, to Lionel Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild (of Tring), a leader of the Anglo-Jewish community. Though the precise meaning of the correspondence has been disputed, its statements were generally contradictory to both the Sykes-Picot Agreement (a secret convention...