Balfour Declaration

The Balfour Declaration was a 1917 British endorsement of the idea of a future Jewish home in Palestine. It became a historical reference point in the postwar dispute over Palestine: when Clark Clifford argued for U.S. recognition of a new Jewish state, he cited the declaration as evidence of an established commitment, even as Britain’s mandate and the question of Palestine’s future remained unresolved.

Origins and Historical Context

The declaration emerged during the First World War. In 1917, Britain seized Palestine from the Ottoman Empire and, in the same year, formally endorsed the idea of a future Jewish home there. The declaration linked wartime British policy to a national aspiration rooted in the history of the region, but it did not itself settle Palestine’s political future.

After the war, the League of Nations granted Britain a mandate over Palestine, with independence expected to follow. The mandate continued, however, and only in 1947 did the British government announce that it would withdraw and turn the issue over to the United Nations. By then, Palestine’s future and the fate of Europe’s displaced Jews had become part of the unsettled consequences of the Second World War facing Harry S. Truman.

Use in the Recognition Debate

During a White House discussion of whether the United States should recognize a new Jewish state, Clifford argued that recognition followed consistently from Truman’s existing policy. He presented it as a humanitarian response to the murder of six million Jews and to the plight of survivors who had nowhere else to go. As part of his case, he explained the Balfour Declaration and cited the biblical claim to a homeland in Palestine.

Clifford also argued that partition and recognition could not realistically be postponed: a separate Jewish state, he said, was imminent, whatever the State Department thought. His use of the declaration placed the immediate policy choice within a longer history of British endorsement, while his appeal to humanitarian responsibility addressed the urgency of the postwar refugee crisis.

Significance

The declaration’s significance in this account lies both in its original endorsement and in its later use as an argument. It offered Clifford historical support for recognition, but it had not resolved the conflict or determined the form of a final settlement. The gap between an earlier promise of a Jewish home and the unresolved question of sovereignty made the declaration a resource in a consequential debate, rather than an answer to it.