Balfour Declaration
At Planting the Seeds, our commitment to justice, solidarity and the dignity of all communities guides our work — Particularly in support of Palestinians facing occupation. As we reflect on the long shadow of the Balfour Declaration, we recognise its enduring consequences for the Palestinian people and the broader struggle for self-determination.
What Was the Balfour Declaration and How is Britain Complicit
On 2 November 1917, Britain issued the Balfour Declaration: a public pledge by the then British Foreign Secretary, Arthur James Balfour, in a letter to Lionel Walter Rothschild, stating that the British government “viewed with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”.
The text included that “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.”
However, the reality that followed u-turned dramatically from what that caveat seemed to promise.
The pledge is generally viewed as one of the main catalysts of the Nakba – Every year on May 15th, Palestinians and their allies around the world, mark the Nakba, or “catastrophe”, referring to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine and the near-total destruction of Palestinian society in 1948. On that day, the State of Israel was created. Its formation involved violent actions, including the forced removal of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, to create a Jewish-majority state as desired by the Zionist movement.
What it meant for the people of Palestine.
For Palestinians, The pledge transformed the Zionist aim of establishing a Jewish state in Palestine into policy reality — under British mandate rule. Palestinian communities were systematically disadvantaged, restricted from forming autonomous institutions, with their land, rights, and future controlled to favour the Zionist project.
Between 1947 and 1949, over 750,000 Palestinians became refugees from a 1.9 million population. Zionist forces seized 78% of historic Palestine, destroyed 530 villages and cities, and killed around 15,000 Palestinians in mass atrocities, including 70+ massacres. Israel continues to brutally oppress and genocide Palestinians to this day.
What caused the Nakba?
The Nakba began with the rise of Zionism, a political idea from late 19th-century Eastern Europe. Zionism belief that Jews are a nation or a race that deserve their own state.
In 1896, Viennese journalist Theodor Herzl wrote a pamphlet called "The Jewish State," which became the foundation of political Zionism. Herzl believed that the best way to stop long-lasting anti-Jewish feelings and attacks in Europe was to create a Jewish country. While some early supporters considered places like Uganda and Argentina, they later agreed on creating a Jewish state in Palestine, based on the biblical idea that God promised the land to the Jews.
After the Ottoman Empire ended (1517-1914), Britain took control of Palestine under the secret 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement with France to divide the Middle East for their own gain. In 1917, before the British Mandate began (1920-1947), Britain issued the Balfour Declaration, promising to support a national home for Jewish people in Palestine, promising land that DID NOT belong to them.
In 1936, Palestinians started a big revolt against the British and their support for Zionist settlers. The British stopped the revolt by 1939 with harsh force. They destroyed over 2,000 Palestinian homes, imprisoned 9,000 people in camps, used torture, and deported 200 leaders. By the end, at least 10% of Palestinian men were killed, injured, exiled, or jailed.
Further reading can be found here via Al-Jazeera
By mid-1949, at least 750,000 Palestinians had been forced to leave or fled their homes. Zionist forces had carried out around 223 violent acts by then, including massacres, bombings of houses, looting, and the destruction of property and villages.
Some 150,000 Palestinians remained in the areas of Palestine that became part of the Israeli state. Of the 150,000, some 30,000 to 40,000 were internally displaced.
Like the 750,000 who were displaced beyond the borders of the new state, Israel prohibited internally displaced Palestinians from returning to their homes.
By the mid-1950s, about 195,000 Palestinians lived inside Israel. Between 1948 and then, around 30,000 Palestinians (15% of the population) were forced to leave the new state's borders.
Is the Nakba over?
Although the Zionist movement achieved its goal of creating a Jewish homeland in Palestine in 1948, the forced removal and displacement of Palestinians has continued.
In the 1967 the Naksa or "setback," Israel took control of East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza Strip, and still controls them today. While under the UN partition plan, Israel was given 55% of historic Palestine, but now controls over 85%. About 430,000 Palestinians were forced to leave, half of whom were already refugees from 1948. Like in the Nakba, Israeli forces used military actions that broke international law, including attacks on civilians and forced removals. Most refugees went to Jordan, while others went to Egypt and Syria.
The Balfour Declaration was a turning point. Not because it intended to cause decades of murder and suffering — but because it laid the groundwork for a system that privileges one people’s national ambitions at the expense of another people’s rights and land. This barbaric oppression has been forced on the people of Palestinians until this day. The ongoing genocide, following the events of 7th October 2003, has seen that the overall death toll of Palestinians has risen above 69,000, Many of which have been children Gaza has the highest number of child amputees than anywhere else in the world. With all most all schools, universities and hospitals demolished. generations of families martyred.
What can we do together to support Palestinians?
We must continue to support the people of Palestine now and until they live a life liberated by their oppressors. We should mark the Nakba, as a reminder to us on how decisions made by distant powers — without the participation of the affected people — can have generational consequences. underscoring the need to centre the lived experiences and rights of Palestinians, rather than allowing historical narratives to sideline them. We must organise to challenge the structural and legal roots of occupation — not just its immediate violence.
As we reflect on this history, here are ways we at Planting the Seeds invite you to engage:
Educate: Learn more about the roots of the Israeli occupation, including how the Balfour Declaration set in motion many of the structural inequalities still present today (see links).
Amplify voices: Elevate Palestinian narratives, activists and organisations — ensure they are central, not peripheral.
Advocate: Support movements and policies that call for an end to the occupation, a permanent ceasefire, the end of arm sales to occupational forces and the fulfilment of international law and respect for human rights.
Connect: See the links between diverse struggles — whether in Palestine, Sudan or the Congo — and build solidarities that transcend borders.
Sources: Al-Jazeera & United Nations.
