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Balfour Declaration Dbq

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Ninety nine years ago on November 2, 1917, Lord Balfour, Foreign Secretary of the British Government, wrote a letter that stated the British support to facilitate a Jewish homeland in the Middle East. This letter, the Balfour Declaration, is viewed as one of the founding documents of the State of Israel that was birthed some years later in 1948. However, the foundation of the formation of the State of Israel was not an easy task. It is important to understand the historical context to the Balfour Declaration, but more importantly, whether it is considered a valid document under international law.
International law is defined as a set of rules that countries follow in dealing with one another. Since there is no world government, there is no …show more content…

World War I was fought between the Allies and the Axis powers. The British were on the side of the allies; Germany and Turkey were on the side of the Axis powers. Until this point in time, Turkey controlled the Palestine area. The British understood that it was in their best interests to harness the Jewish Zionist aspirations for their own purposes. Part of the Jewish world lived under German and Turkish rule. The Zionist headquarters were at that time in Berlin. Part of the Jewish world lived in the Russian territories, who were undergoing the pangs of revolution. The other part of the Jewish world lived in the USA, which desired to remain neutral. The remaining Jews lived in the Allied counties. They were under the influence that the Germans who used their influence with the Turks to promote the welfare of the Jewish population in Palestine. There were rumors that the Germans would soon recognize the Zionist dream of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The British felt that this would strengthen a world-wide support by the Jews with the Axis powers …show more content…

In the Balfour Declaration, the term “Jewish National Home” was defined to mean a state by the British government at the Cabinet session which approved the Balfour Declaration on October 31, 1917. That was also the meaning originally given to this phrase by the program committee which drafted the Basel Program at the first Zionist Congress in August 1897 and by Theodor Herzl, the founder of the Zionist Organization. The word “home” as used in the Balfour Declaration was simply the synonym for a state originally adopted by the Zionist Organization when the territory of Palestine was subject to the rule of the Ottoman Empire, which involved a potential loss of this territory by the Empire . The phrase “in Palestine” was another expression found in the Balfour Declaration that generated much controversy. The referred to the whole country, including both Cisjordan and Transjordan. It’s irrational to think that the phrase could only mean a part of Palestine could be used as the future Jewish National Home, since both were created simultaneously and used interchangeably, with the term “Palestine” pointing out the geographical location of the future independent Jewish state. Palestine and the Jewish National Home were synonymous terms, as is evidenced

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