Here’s a simple guide to break down one of the world’s longest-running conflicts:
What was the Balfour Declaration?
More than 100 years ago, on November 2, 1917, Britain’s then-foreign secretary, Arthur Balfour, wrote a letter addressed to Lionel Walter Rothschild, a figurehead of the British Jewish community.
The letter was short – just 67 words – but its contents had a seismic effect on Palestine that is still felt to this day.
It committed the British government to “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people” and to facilitating “the achievement of this object”. The letter is known as the Balfour Declaration.
In essence, a European power promised the Zionist movement a country where Palestinian Arab natives made up more than 90 percent of the population.
A British Mandate was created in 1923 and lasted until 1948. During that period, the British facilitated mass Jewish immigration – many of the new residents were fleeing Nazism in Europe – and they also faced protests and strikes. Palestinians were alarmed by their country’s changing demographics and British confiscation of their lands to be handed over to Jewish settlers.
What happened during the 1930s?
Escalating tensions eventually led to the Arab Revolt, which lasted from 1936 to 1939.
In April 1936, the newly formed Arab National Committee called on Palestinians to launch a general strike, withhold tax payments and boycott Jewish products to protest British colonialism and growing Jewish immigration.
