Zionism

Balfour and Allenby.

At the outbreak of World War I, Palestine lay under the control of the Ottoman Empire. The cherished hopes of the World Zionist Organization (WZO) for a Jewish homeland in Palestine seemed impossible to realize while the Holy Land remained in Muslim hands. But 1914 brought new hope with the British declaration of war on the Ottoman state. Long sympathetic to the Zionist cause (its offer to help procure land in Africa for Jewish settlement had been rejected by the WZO in 1905), Britain now adopted the reclamation of Palestine and its opening for Jewish immigration as an official part of its foreign policy. The Balfour Declaration of November 1917, named for foreign secretary Arthur Balfour, epitomized Britain's stand on Zionism at the time. "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...

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