Significance Of The Balfour Declaration

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Abstract: There are very few documents that have had the enormous amount of significance and impact as the Balfour Declaration. The document contained just sixty-seven words and changed history for decades to come and even still influences the peace and conflict between the Arabs and Israelis to this day. However, the validity of this document comes into question. Was this statement a binding international contract intended to uphold a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine? Or was the declaration merely one of opinion and not supported by international law? This essay attempts to address that as well as provide a brief history of the document itself. The Balfour Declaration was sent as part of a letter to Lionel Walter Rothschild, …show more content…

Edward Said argued in his book, The Question of Palestine, that the declaration was made by a European power about a non-European territory and that it was in “flat disregard of both the presence and wishes of the native majority reside in that territory.” Furthermore, Said expressed that the Balfour Declaration is essentially taking away the homeland of the Palestinians and giving it to the Jews, who (he believes) have no right to the land. Said is not the only person to have spoken out about this unlawfulness of the Balfour Declaration. Faisal Bodi, a British journalist, stated “[i]n 1917, the Balfour Declaration promised a national home for the Jewish people. Under international law the declaration was null and void since Palestine did not belong to Britain – under the pact of the League of Nations it belonged to Turkey.” Both Said and Bodi hold firm convictions that the Balfour Declaration is not a valid document and therefore should not be recognized as such under the international law. However, the reality of the situation is not as Said or Bodi would like it to …show more content…

Many other countries either issued similar statements to the Balfour Declaration or had already agreed on it beforehand. The French foreign minister stated that an injustice was done to the Jewish nationality when the people of Israel were expelled previous centuries in a statement several months before the Balfour Declaration was issued. Similarly, United States President Woodrow Wilson had approved the declaration when it was sent to him in advance. Winston Churchill made references to the fact that the ideas of the Balfour Declaration had been “reaffirmed in several binding multinational treaties as well as the League of Nations mandate itself [and] it is not susceptible to change.” That is when the Balfour Declaration officially became a valid document under the international law and international law recognized that the Jewish community was in Palestine by right and that facilitating and increasing Jewish immigration was a “binding international obligation on the

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