The Hidden History of the Balfour Declaration

A single page that reshaped a region and the hidden record behind it.

Contained on a single page, the Balfour Declaration was sent by Arthur Balfour, the British Foreign Secretary, to Lord Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community, in November 1917. It read, in part, “His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”

This brief missive was to be critical in determining the history of the Middle East, from the creatio...