Balfour Declaration Of Israel By Theodor Herzl: A Summary

During the First World War in 1917, the British government issued the Balfour Declaration, supporting the “establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”. After the war, Palestine became a British Mandate and national aspirations for eventual self-determination of the Arab majority in Palestine were simultaneously encouraged by British officials insisting that the promises it made to Jews and Arabs did not conflict. During this Mandate period, massive numbers of Jews immigrated to Palestine and tensions leading to periodic clashes between the Arabs, Jews, and the British increased. Following the Second World War, a sense of poignancy was also added for the demand of a Jewish home as a response to the Jewish survivors of the Holocaust.

Herzl believed, after experiencing anti-semitism himself, that the only solution to the “Jewish problem” was to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine. (De Hass, J. page 16) For the remainder of his life, Herzl worked in order to acquire a Jewish homeland. In his book The Jewish State: An Attempt at a Modern Solution to the Jewish Question, Herzl lays out a plan as to how the Jewish state should be achieved, where and why. Theodor Herzl is now recognized as the father of Zionism and the creation of the state of Israel, who fulfilled his wishes of finally establishing a Jewish homeland. The country of Israel today is heavily influenced by Zionism in the way that some of the government leaders want