The Economist: The Balfour Declaration

While the Balfour Declaration was not as strong as Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann had hoped when ratified in 1917 as it turns out, the public statement of support issued by the British government during World War I for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine did reinforce the settler project and deliver Israeli statehood. According to the Economist, “Weizmann believed that the support of world powers, particularly Britain, would be enough to create a Jewish homeland. At the time Jews made up less than 10% of the population in Palestine. They lacked the resources or the strength to establish a state.” While the British later published a proposal in 1939 to limit Jewish settlement due to indigenous Arab revolt over settler-colonialism, by the 1940s the Zionists had organized, “forming militias, a parliament and a nascent government.” “When the UN voted in 1947 to partition Palestine, the Jews already had the trappings of their state.” A century later, the Balfour Declaration urges consideration of the larger historical consequences of European imperialism. British-sanctioned Zionist colonial settlement gave way to the Palestine question, and Palestinian leaders like Mahmoud Abbas continue to try and win international recognition. –YaleGlobal