Middle East Conflict Primary Sources | The Biltmore Program

The Biltmore Program (May 11, 1942)

Reprinted in The Arab States and the Arab League
Edited by Muhammad Khalil
Published in 1962

"The Conference declares that the new world order that will follow victory cannot be established on foundations of peace, justice and equality, unless the problem of Jewish homelessness is finally solved."

Ever since 1917, the year that Britain had pledged in the Balfour Declaration to "use [its] best endeavours to facilitate the ... establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people," Jewish supporters of this idea, called Zionists, looked to Britain to defend their cause. Throughout the 1920s and into the 1930s, the British government, which controlled Palestine, allowed Jewish immigrants to enter Palestine where they helped build farms, businesses, and communities, thus creating a distinct Jewish society that...