Balfour Declaration

A public letter dated 2 November 1917 from British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Lord (Walter) Rothschild, stating that the British government viewed "with favour" the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in the Land of Israel and would use its best endeavours to achieve it, while also stipulating that nothing should prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities there or the rights of Jews in other countries. It was the first major diplomatic recognition of Zionist aims by a great power, won largely through the efforts of Chaim Weizmann, and its wording was later written into the League of Nations Mandate that entrusted the country to Britain in 1922, shaping the legal and political framework for Jewish immigration and settlement over the following decades.