The Balfour Declaration and its legacy

In November 1917, British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour sent a terse letter to Lord Rothschild promising that “His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”

This became the Balfour Declaration, formally issued on November 2, 1917. It pledged British support for Zionist aims, while adding a caveat that “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.”

The declaration was made without consultation of Palestine’s Arabs, over 90% of the population, and contradicted earlier wartime British commitments to Arab independence, the result of the Hussein–McMahon correspondence and French interests under the Sykes–Picot Agreement.

In practical terms, it set the stage for the British Mandate in Palestine and encouraged increased Jewish immigration. Indeed, under the Mandate, Britain actively facilitated Jewish settlement – raising the Jewish share of Palestine’s overall population from ~9% in 1922 to over 27% by 1935, often at the expense of Palestinians.

Britain’s motives were complex. Historians note that the declaration aimed to rally Jewish support, especially in the United States and Russia, for the Allied war effort, and to plant a pro-British community along the approaches to the Suez Canal. Some analysts also argue that British policymakers saw Zionism as a colonial outlet: by promising Jews a homeland in Palestine, Britain could simultaneously appease Zionist pressure at home and project imperial influence in the Middle East.

Whatever the rationale, the declaration effectively sidelined the majority Palestinian population. As Edward Said observed, it was “made by a European power… about a non-European territory… in flat disregard of both the presence and wishes of the native majority.”

For Palestinians, the Balfour Declaration is remembered as a profound betrayal, a colonial pledge that not only foreshadowed the Nakba of 1948, but also laid the legal and political foundations for the genocide witnessed in Gaza and the relentless settler expansionism that grips the occupied West Bank.

His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

 

— British Secretary of State Arthur James Balfour

Britain’s pledge to protect the rights of Palestine’s existing non-Jewish population was largely disregarded once the Mandate began. While the Balfour Declaration stipulated that “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities,” British policies soon favored the establishment of a “Jewish national home.”

In 1939, the White Paper attempted to limit Jewish immigration and restrict land sales in response to Arab opposition, angering Zionist leaders who viewed it as a breach of Britain’s promise. However, the outbreak of World War II and the eventual founding of "Israel" in 1948 overtook these policies, rendering them largely irrelevant.

By then, Palestine’s Arabs had been left without a state or meaningful self-determination, solidifying the injustice seeded in 1917. Decades later Palestinians note that the Declaration offered a land where the natives made up more than 90 percent of the population, while Palestinians themselves were neither consulted nor given full political rights.

War on Gaza 2025: Devastation and displacement

Nearly a century later, Balfour's infamous legacy remains alive in "Israel’s" war on Gaza, which has produced catastrophic death and destruction. According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, Israeli occupation forces have killed over 67,000 Palestinians and wounded about 169,000 between October 7, 2023, and early October 2025. This includes roughly 19,000 children killed and 42,000 wounded.

The vast majority of the population, roughly 90% of Gaza’s 2.2 million people, have been forcibly displaced at least once, most driven by "Israel’s" relentless bombing and siege. Human Rights Watch reports Israeli authorities have executed a policy of mass “forced displacement” and destruction of civilian homes, likely amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity. In effect, "Israel’s" military campaign has rendered Gaza unlivable: power, water, sanitation, and health services are almost entirely destroyed, and famine conditions have been declared by humanitarian agencies.

In the words of UN agencies and aid workers, Gaza is enduring a “man-made humanitarian catastrophe.”

Read more: ‘We don’t feel safe’: Hope crushed as ‘Israel’ resumes Gaza killings

British recognition of Palestine: Political theatre?

Amid Gaza’s ruin, Britain has moved to “revive hope” by recognizing a Palestinian state.

On 21 September 2025, Prime Minister Keir Starmer formally declared that the UK now “recognises the State of Palestine.”

The announcement, coming in the heat of the genocide in Gaza, fulfills a Labor manifesto promise and follows intense pressure from within the party. Starmer cited a moral imperative: the “man-made humanitarian crisis in Gaza reaches new depths,” describing the “starvation and devastation” as “utterly intolerable.” He noted that the UK had recognized "Israel" 75 years prior, and said joining “over 150 countries” in recognizing Palestine signaled that Israelis and Palestinians “deserve a better future.”

Yet, the recognition of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borderlines does not atone for London's sins. 

The territorial landscape of Palestine changed dramatically between the 1947 UN Partition Plan and the 1949 Armistice Agreements. While the UN General Assembly’s Resolution 181 had allocated 56% of Mandatory Palestine to a proposed "Jewish state" and 42% to an Arab state, the outcome of the 1948 War left "Israel" in control of roughly 78% of the land west of the Jordan River, which is now recognized as the 1967 borders.

The remaining 22%, split between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, is either completely devastated and besieged or under direct Israeli occupation and control.

It took a full-fledged genocide for Britain to recognize the Palestinian state, however, on the borders established by the 1948 ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population. 

The territories "Israel" occupied at the time included major coastal cities, vast agricultural land, and key port access to both the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, along with vital freshwater resources such as the Sea of Galilee and parts of the Jordan River basin, fertile valleys like Jezreel and Hula, and access to mineral-rich zones near the Dead Sea. These assets provided not only economic and agricultural advantage but also long-term strategic depth and control over critical trade and water routes.

Now, Britain recognizes a fragmented Palestinian state, stripped of its natural resources, deprived of most of its land, and divided by expanding Israeli occupation zones, while taking no meaningful action to halt settlement expansion in the West Bank despite international condemnation.

Finance Minister Smotrich retorted that “the mandate is over” and insisted "Israel" must solidify “sovereignty over the homeland of the Jewish people in Judea and Samaria.”

Within Britain, analysts noted that recognition was “deeply symbolic” and primarily a foreign-policy realignment for Starmer. Indeed, The Guardian observer wrote that by itself the gesture “will not change anything on the ground in Gaza.”

Read more: Microsoft's role in world’s first AI-driven genocide, in Gaza, exposed

Expansion of illegal settlements

While Gaza reels under bombardment, "Israel" continues to expand settlements and tighten occupation in the West Bank and beyond. The current governing coalition has accelerated settlement construction at a record pace. A recent Reuters analysis notes that since 2023, the number of West Bank settlement housing units approved for construction exceeds the previous nine years combined. In 2025 alone, approvals were nearly double the 2020 level.

A UN Human Rights Council report similarly concluded that settlement growth is now “ever-increasing.” Every such expansion, from new outposts to dense housing in al-Quds, digs "Israel’s" control deeper into Palestinian land, undermining any contiguous Palestinian state.

Israeli checkpoints, barriers, and bypass roads lace through the West Bank, isolating Palestinian cities and farmland. UN data show 850 separate restrictions on Palestinian movement in the West Bank as of early 2025, up from 565 before the war in Gaza. New settler roads and outposts commonly cut off Palestinian villages or confine them to enclaves. International law considers all settlements illegal, yet "Israel" defies this with complete impunity.

Belfour's implications traversed Palestine, affecting Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon with direct Israeli occupations at different stages. In the south Lebanon, Israeli forces occupy the Shebaa Farms, a 39 km² area that Lebanon, in addition to several points across the line of withdrawal, now known as the “five points.” In Syria, "Israel" has occupied the Golan Heights since 1967 and formally annexed it in 1981. Though the international community rejects this annexation, UNSC Resolution 497, "Israel" continued to expand its reach following the fall of the Assad regime, occupying key outposts in Mount Hermon and Quneitra. Re-entering parts of the adjacent demilitarized zone inside Syria, citing security concerns, "Israel" now controls an additional 370 to over 500 km² of Syrian territory.

Read more: Israeli roads in West Bank trap Palestinians as settlements expand

Balfour as colonial strategy: Redirecting Zionism

Historians often interpret the Balfour Declaration as not just a pro-Zionist statement, but as a calculated colonial maneuver. By offering Jews a homeland in Ottoman Palestine, Britain aimed to “rally Jewish opinion” in support of the Allies and create a new base of influence in the Middle East. British leaders hoped that granting Zionists their nationalist aspirations elsewhere would ease Zionist agitation at home. In this view, Balfour implicitly asked Zionists to focus their ambitions on Palestine rather than lobbying London, effectively exporting a domestic pressure group abroad. Before the declaration, Zionist leaders lobbied London for relief for persecuted European Jews, alternative refuge options, Jewish military participation, and concrete guarantees for immigration, land, and infrastructure.

Zionist leaders like Chaim Weizmann were eager to enlist Britain’s help in Palestine, while Lloyd George and others saw strategic value in a Jewish presence near the Suez Canal.

The result was to shift the question of Jewish national aspirations from British streets to the Levant. Over time, Britain’s initial promise became an anchor for further imperial rule. The Mandate, endorsed by the League of Nations in 1922, made the Zionist project official.

Read more: 70% of Gaza destroyed as 'Israel' shifts to bulldozer 'land clearing'

Accountability and reparations

Today, calls for accountability and reparations have grown louder. In September 2025, a coalition of Palestinians and lawyers submitted a 900-page petition demanding Britain acknowledge “serial international law violations” from 1917–1948 and make amends. The petitioners argue that Britain’s “unlawful legacy,” from the Balfour Declaration to brutal suppression of Arab revolts, still “reverberates” today. The campaign group "Britain Owes Palestine" is demanding an official apology, reparations, and a reckoning comparable to Britain’s own post-colonial apologies, such as its apology for the 1948 Batang Kali massacre.

Yet British officials have so far rejected legal liability. Downing Street claims that times and laws have changed since 1917. An official spokesman told journalists that Britain recognized "Israel’s" right to exist in 1948 and has since supported many UN resolutions, but that “what happened in 1917 was in the context of the First World War” and is “not directly comparable” to today.

If 1917-level standards don’t apply, then what of modern international law?

Read more: UNGA 2025 opens with Gaza genocide dominating leaders' speeches

Conclusion: History and the way forward

The Balfour Declaration began as a colonial promise that disregarded the native majority of Palestine. Now, 108 years later, the issues it set in motion remain unresolved. In 2025, as Gaza endures its darkest chapter since 1948, the ripples of 1917 continue to shape lives.

Its contemporary implications are seen in Gaza’s rubble, in refugee camps across West Asia, and in diplomatic rows from London to the United Nations. For Palestinians, every discussion of “statehood” or “two states” must confront the words of 1917 and the legacy of colonialism they represent.

Yet acknowledgment, whether a parliamentary resolution, a statement of recognition, or a formal apology, cannot substitute for concrete change.

If anniversary observances are to mean anything beyond rhetoric, they must be paired with action: an immediate halt to policies that perpetuate dispossession, credible mechanisms to protect civilians and deliver justice, and serious international pressure to restore Palestinian political rights, including full consideration of restitution, reparations, and durable political remedies. Until those measures are taken, the Balfour Declaration will remain not only a page in a history book but an active cause of British and colonial injustice that successive generations continue to inherit.

Read more: Blair Gaza plan is to 'complete Balfour Declaration', presidency warns